SARGODHA: After failure of negotiations between the goods transport owners and the Punjab transport secretary, all the owners of the goods depots went on a strike by shutting their booking offices from Thursday.

In a joint statement issued on Thursday, Goods Transport Association President Muhammad Imran Dhonda, Secretary General Khwaja Zeeshan and other leaders said it was not possible for them to run their business when officials of the National Highway and Motorway Police (NH&MP), traffic police, Regional Transport Authority (RTA) etc force them to give bribe and issue them challan tickets without any justification.

They announced that their strike was for an indefinite period and might continue till the end of the year if their demands were not accepted.

They regretted that government departments were using different tactics to destroy the goods transport sector which pays billions of rupees in taxes annually.

Now the goods transport owners would not accept any “lollipop” from the government as they played the role of the backbone of the country’s economy, the association office-bearers said, adding that no more bookings would be made in view of the pathetic attitude of the administration.

Meanwhile, the cement dealers have also gone on strike, which pushed the price of a cement bag up to over Rs2000.

Due to the failure of their negotiations with the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR), the cement dealers have refused to pick cement stocks from the factories.

Expressing concern over the strike, the contractors apprehend that it will not only cause a heavy loss to the exchequer, but also hit the construction sector.

Published in Dawn, July 26th, 2024