Mining truck owners come down on rate, but Sesa needs to hike
GOANEWS DESK, PANAJI | 17 December 2015 23:10 IST
The striking truck owners of mining have agreed to come down on their demand of transportation rate, provided the Sesa mining company agrees to hike the rate they are offering today.
Chief Minister Laxmikant Parsekar partially succeeded in getting the truck owners to reduce their demand, but did not succeed in getting them agree to the rates offered by the Sesa company.
While Sesa is offering Rs eight per tonne per km, the All Goa Truck Association is demanding Rs 17.32 per tonne per km, citing hike in diesel rates and other overheads.
“We have given our final offer of Rs 11.27 per tonne per km but we will not accept the rate of Rs 8 under any circumstances”, AGTA president Laxmikant Gawas told goanews.com.
Parsekar told goanews.com late last night that he would talk to Sesa mining company tomorrow with a new proposal of transportation rate, which the truck owners would hopefully agree to.
According to Gawas, the CM simply walked out of the meeting when they remained firm on their demand of increasing the rate of Rs 8 per tonne per km offered by Sesa.
No truck carrying Sesa’s iron ore plied on the route today as per Parsekar’s request to the Sesa while truck owners continued their strike by gathering at Usgao Vadakaden.
The initiative for the meeting with the CM was taken by BJP Goa president Vinay Tendulkar, Sankhli MLA Pramod Sawant and Tivim MLA Kiran Kandolkar, who assured the truck owners of finding a solution in a meeting with the CM.
The meeting held in Panaji was also attended by more mining-belt BJP legislators – Anant Shet, Nilesh Cabral and Ganesh Gaonkar.
“Their demands are genuine, but I can’t come to conclusion unless Sesa company agrees to hike their rate”, said CM Parsekar.
He also met another organisation of truck owners to break the impasse.
But Gawas has said they would continue their agitation until they get the hiked rates.
Both – the truck owners as well as CM –say that they want speedy solution and resume the mining activity, which was stopped for the last three years.
