Diesel price hike: Road travel to become costlier

Effective Saturday midnight, all commercial vehicles in the state are set to increase fares by 20% in case of travel beyond 50km and by 25% in case of travel less than 50km, as per a unanimous decision taken by the Bihar Motor Transport Federation (BMTF), at a meeting held here on Friday.

Effective Saturday midnight, all commercial vehicles in the state are set to increase fares by 20% in case of travel beyond 50km and by 25% in case of travel less than 50km, as per a unanimous decision taken by the Bihar Motor Transport Federation (BMTF), at a meeting held here on Friday.

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President of BMTF, Uday Shankar Singh, said transporters had no choice but to increase fares of commercial vehicles. gThe unanimous decision to increase fares of commercial vehicles was taken at a BMTF meeting held here on Friday,h he added.

Singh said, in the past year alone, there had been three increases in diesel price amounting approximately to R10 per litre. This combined with 60% increase in price of mobil, 20% rise in the price of chassis and 110% increase in insurance, had hit transporters hard, he reasoned.

He urged the state government to create pressure on the Centre to roll back increase in prices of diesel. Condemning the Centrefs unilateral decision to increase diesel prices without consulting transporters, Singh said if the state government reduced 3% state taxes on diesel, BMTF would pass on the benefit to consumers.

Raj Kumar Jha, state CITU secretary and general secretary, Bihar State Auto Chalak Sangh, hinted at point-to-point autorickshaw fare increase by R2 to R5 following the latest increase in the price of diesel.

"The state government should provide us diesel subsidy as given to farmers in the state, or allow us to increase autorickshaw fares to offset diesel price rise," he said.

A final decision on increasing autorickshaw fares would be taken at a meeting to be held on Saturday evening, he added.