Tirupati: Auto-rickshaw, cab drivers up in arms against fuel price hike
Auto, cab drivers and AITUC activists pulling a van with a rope as part of their protest against the hike in fuel prices in Tirupati
on Tuesday
Tirupati: The higher fuel prices have been creating ripple effects on various sectors causing panic among the people. The prices of petrol and diesel were on a sharp rise for the past few days with the changes in global crude prices and showing signs of further increase in the coming days to hit the century mark.
Finance Minister Niramala Sitharaman has imposed Agriculture Infrastructure and Development Cess (AIDC) of Rs 2.50 per litre on petrol and Rs 4 per litre on diesel in her Budget speech in the Lok Sabha on Monday.
However, she announced the cut in the basic excise duty and special additional excise duty rates on these prices to ensure that the prices should not go up correspondingly with the imposition of AIDC.
However, the fuel prices have already reached new highs during the past few days to touch around Rs 92 per litre of petrol and Rs 85 per litre of diesel. This has led to an increase in transport costs of various commodities and the people have been already facing the brunt of it.
Forced by the situation, the cab and auto-rickshaw drivers have already increased the charges and saying that the people were avoiding hiring the vehicles as far as possible as it became a huge burden on them. With this, they could not meet even their daily expenditure at the end of the day and demanded that the government bring down the fuel prices.
In support of the cab drivers, All India Trade Union Congress (AITUC), Tirupati unit, has led a novel protest too in Tirupati on Tuesday by pulling a vehicle with the ropes symbolising the abnormal hike in fuel prices.
Criticising the imposition of Agri Cess on fuel prices, AITUC district general secretary P Murali has said that it will cause a huge burden on all sections of people and the poor and middle class will find it extremely difficult to bear the burden. The transport sector has already been hit by the Covid pandemic and such abnormal hike in fuel prices will only worsen the situation.
Leaders of various organisations Chinnam Penchalaiah, K Radhakrishna, KV Raja, N Siva, JV Chalapathi and several others took part in the protest and said that they will intensify the agitation in the coming days.