Baalu calls for urgent meeting of all state transport commissioners

NEW DELHI: Transport minister T R Baalu has called for an urgent meeting of all state transport commissioners on Monday to discuss the next course of action to deal with the on-going nation-wide strike by transporters atht entered its sixth day on Saturday.

The meeting will also be attended by some big transporters, though the transport associations will be giving it a miss.
"I dont see much issue in this strike, as the issues have been sorted out in July 2008 already," said Mr Baalu. Apart from a bail-out package, transporters have been demanding for an exemption from paying service tax and toll tax, till the toll committee report is finalized.

Mr Baalu reiterated that essential commodity supply has not been ef-fected and there is a somewhat negligible effect of the strike in the country.

He has also asked the transporters to come forward for negotiations, af-ter making it clear that his ministry did not want to 'act tough' on them. "We don't want to act tough, we don't want to precipitate the is-sue further. Transporters are the stakeholders of the ministry. I 'm only requesting them to come forward for talks," he said.

A senior government official in the trasport department said, "The strike will break on its own,".

Baalu added that invoking Essential Services Maintenance Act (ESMA) should not be seen as taking stringent actions, as the measure has been prescribed by the law. At the same time he clarified that the transport ministry has not made any recommendation to the home ministry for imposing the act. The minister's soft stand on errant transporters comes a day after the Centre asked states to act firm against the transporters and invoke ESMA. So far, seven states including Andhra Pradesh, Mad-hya Pradesh, Gujarat, Delhi and Uttar Pradesh have invoked ESMA.