Hyderabad, July 09: With the Auto Drivers Joint Action Committee calling for a strike, most of the autorickshaws in the twin cities and suburbs are likely to go off the road from the midnight of June 8.
The Twin Cities Autorickshaw Owners’ Welfare Association is extending support to the Auto Drivers Joint Action Committee which is demanding a halt to indiscriminate issuance of e-challans by the traffic police and immediate rollback of the steep hike in the petrol and diesel rates.
Alleging that the traffic authorities were having double standards, the members of the unions, in a statement on Wednesday, said that they would be holding a mass rally from the Ambedkar Bhavan to Indira Park at 11 am. “Some of the traffic police personnel have been seizing autorickshaws illegally in the name of pending e-challans and collecting penalty amounts off the book.
As a part of our protest we would be presenting a memorandum to the Chief Minister at the Secretariat,’’ the president of Auto Drivers Joint Action Committee, Amanullah Khan, said.
Auto drvers explain that they are resorting to the strike as the talks between them and transport commissioner Raymond Peter have failed.
They allege that the police are targeting only autorickshaws and leaving the sevenseater vehicles and other public transport vehicles, which are always overloaded, are spared for reasons not known.
–Agencies–