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Truckers’ strike ‘ends’, but panic-buying steals the show
Most filling stations--be it in cities such as Lucknow, Kanpur and Varanasi or towns such as Unnao and Hardoi--reported long queues and chaos till the night.
Although the truckers’ strike was reportedly called off late on Tuesday night, bringing a collective sigh of relief to the affected cities in Uttar Pradesh, panic-buying was the order of the day at fuel stations in almost all urban centres of the state. Not just fuel, but the supply of fruits and vegetables was also severely hit as truckers protested the provisions in the Bharatiya Nyay Sanhita for hit-and-run cases.
Most filling stations--be it in cities such as Lucknow, Kanpur and Varanasi or towns such as Unnao and Hardoi--reported long queues and chaos till the night.
By late afternoon, most filling stations were witnessing a heavy influx of vehicles seeking “full-tank” refills. At many places, the congestion spilled out onto adjacent roads causing traffic jams.
“Everyone wants a full tank while petrol pumps’ storage tanks are reporting a fast depletion of stocks without any sign of replenishment. All pumps will either exhaust their stocks by today (Tuesday) evening or tomorrow (Wednesday) afternoon,” the president of Lucknow Petrol Diesel Dealers’ Association and the vice-president of UP Petrol Dealers’ Association, Daya Shankar Singh.
The working president of the state-level association, Ashwani Attrish, said, “Eighty per cent of petrol pumps in Lucknow, Kanpur and Varanasi have already dried up. We hope that the supply is normalised by tomorrow evening. There are over 10,000 petrol pumps in the state and around 200 in the state capital. If they are not filled regularly then long queues will be witnessed there.”
At many filling stations, police were deployed to prevent scuffles.
Truckers are protesting some provisions in the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, which is set to replace the Indian Penal Code, that proposes that a driver may face up to 10 years of imprisonment in a hit-and-run case.
Vegetable prices shot up
Cities that depend on vegetable supplies from other cities, such as Meerut (which gets its supply from the Azadpur Mandi in Delhi), had started to feel the heat of the truckers’ strike.
The vice-president of Meerut Sabji Mandi Association, Sarfaraj Ansari, said vegetables at the mandi in significantly lesser quantities on Tuesday, and that the prices of onion, garlic, green chilli and others had shot up already in the wake of lack of supply from Delhi and other cities. “The situation will worsen if the strike continues,” said Ansari who added that the stock of fruits might also finish in a day or two.
Even the markets in Lucknow and a few other places in the state reported a 20 to 30 per cent hike in vegetable and fruit prices.
The supply to Chakarpur Mandi, a key wholesale market in Kanpur, was severely crippled resulting in the potato and onion prices rising by up to ₹300 and ₹350 a quintal, respectively, there, said Pankaj Kushwaha, the president of Chakarpur Mandi Vyapari Association.
Meanwhile, a protest by truckers turned violent when protestors, mostly drivers, resorted to stone pelting on Agra Lucknow Expressway within the limits of Karhal police station in Mainpuri district in the afternoon.
Police used force to disperse the unruly group and restored the traffic on the 302-kilometer-long stretch. Vinod Kumar, the Mainpuri superintendent of police, denied that any firing incident took place and claimed that stone-pelting took place only for a few minutes and had little impact on the traffic movement.
In Kanpur, even e-rickshaws went off roads; city ran out of milk
In Kanpur, the striking truckers adopted an aggressive approach as they forced commercial vehicles to go off roads not only on highways but also in the city. This resulted in thousands of commuters, who would have rather hired autorickshaws or e-rickshaws, walking for several kilometres. Kanpur Metro suddenly witnessed a heavy rush of passengers on its 9-km route between IIT-Kanpur and Motijheel.
Out of the 267 filing stations the city has, 20 per cent went dry reportedly due to frenzied buying.
As a result, armed escorts were provided to the depots of three major oil companies, said a senior civil supplies official.
Also, Kanpur had been running out of milk as 114 vehicles that supply the commodity to the city had not run till the evening. Milk from Kanpur is also supplied to Prayagraj and Varanasi, Kishan Yadav, an official of the local Amul plant, said.
Truckers block highway in Varanasi
In Varanasi, truck drivers blocked roads by parking trucks in the middle of the highway on the Mohansarai Intersection. The protest led to vehicles queuing up on the highway from Rohaniya to Rajatalab and from Mohansarai to Akhri. Several school vehicles and ambulances also remained stranded. Truck drivers also staged protests in Bhadohi and other areas of U.P.
