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Diesel price hike hits lorry owners hard
After Vijayawada, Salur is one of the towns, which has more lorries than any other town in the State. But the industry is facing problems for the last few years. Apart from this, closure of companies like Ferro Alloys and jute mills had badly affected the transport business in this area.
Vizianagaram: Lorry owners are looking for greener pastures as their business was hit by diesel price hike. Salur is a transport hub in north Andhra.
After Vijayawada, Salur is one of the towns, which has more lorries than any other town in the State. But the industry is facing problems for the last few years.
Apart from this, closure of companies like Ferro Alloys and jute mills had badly affected the transport business in this area.
The Union government is reviewing the oil prices every fortnight and based on the crude oil price in the international market, the government is adjusting the price in Indian market. But, due to several reasons, the government is not minimising the price of oil in our market though price of the crude oil is coming down.
As a result, the consumers are forced to bear the burden. The diesel price is raised by Rs 8 in the last few months and now the lorry operators are struggling to wriggle out of debts.
Vizianagaram district has around 3,000 lorries, while Salur town has around 2,000 lorries. Around one lakh litres of diesel is being sold through 97 petrol bunks in the district.
Due to heavy competition, the locals of Salur town are forced to cut down fares. Most of the vehicles travel with load of jute products, ferro alloy and granite products to Odisha, Chhattisgarh and West Bengal.
But, in the last few months around nine ferro alloy companies and six jute mills were closed as they were incurring losses. As a result, transport business was affected.
K Rama Rao, a lorry owner said, “I need to pay Rs 25,000 to the finance company and Rs10,000 to driver and cleaner. Unless, I get minimum Rs 50,000 income per month, I can’t sustain and maintain the vehicle. Now, I am planning to run the vehicle to save the driver expenditure.”
K Ramana, Andhra Pradesh Lorry Owners Association secretary said, “Maintaining a lorry is not an easy task now. It has become a white elephant for us. Transport business was a golden goose earlier, but now the business has become a burden sans profit. And now, the owners are struggling to pay the expenditure and finance bills.”
By:Koppara Gandhi
