The All India Confederation of Goods Vehicles Owners’ Association (Acogoa) has appealed to the Prime Minister to do the needful to fix minimum hire rates for trucks.

Reacting sharply to the recent hike in diesel price, Channa Reddy, President, Acogoa, has observed that the hike will not benefit the individual trucks owners dominating the country’s road transport sector as the benefit of the increase will be appropriated by the middlemen. This happened in the past and will happen this time also.

“The individual truck owners are most vulnerable as they have no control over the way the hire rates are determined, more so because neither the Union Government nor the state governments has done anything so far to fix the minimum hire rates, presumably because of their lack of understanding of the dynamics of road transport sector,” the statement observes.

The statement also points out that as early as May this year, Acogoa had written to the Government drawing attention to the adverse impact of probable increase in diesel price on the individual truck owners.

“The country will never become self-sufficient in crude production and every time there is a rise in international price, the oil companies will raise the prices of their products and the truckers and the common people will continue to suffer,” a spokesman for Acogoa told Business Line.

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