The ongoing strike by truckers against the hike in the premium of third party insurance is set to intensify with a Motor Transport Union official informing that a meeting with the Insurance Regulatory Development Authority of India (IRDAI) failed to arrive at a solution.
The ongoing strike across southern states is likely to result in rise in prices of essential commodities as they have threatened to intensify their protest against the steep hike third-party motor insurance rates.
"There was no commitment on the part of the IRDAI to reduce the hike in third party premium rates for trucks," All India Motor Transport Congress' vice-president, south zone, PV Subramani, said.
"The IRDAI said they would form a committee to consider reduction. We felt this would consume lot of time and hence decided to intensify our strike," he added.
Subramani is also the Chairman and Managing Director of Cargo Wings Logistics Ltd.
The third-party premium for automobiles is decided by the IRDAI, while all other premium rates are decided by the insurers -- private and government-owned.
He said that from Tuesday onwards, even the trucks that were now plying to south India, will stop midway. According to him, around 650,000 trucks are off the roads in the southern states and the business loss per day is around Rs 4 crore.
The IRDAI had last month cleared the proposal of general insurance companies to pay higher commissions to agents and charge more for third party insurance in case of vehicles. With this, the third-party insurance charge will go up by 40 per cent to 50 per cent, subject to the type of vehicle you use. However, 1,000 CC private cars and 75 CC two-wheelers have been kept out of this provision.
