Bangalore, Jan 22 (IANS) In a major relief to the IT and BPO sectors, Karnataka truckers Tuesday night called off their two-day-old strike to protest a move for mandatory speed governors that saw over 300,000 commercial vehicles keep off the roads.
The strike was called off after the government decided to keep the move on speed governors in abeyance.
“From tomorrow (Wednesday) our vehicles will be back on the roads as the government has given a written assurance not to enforce the decision immediately,” announced G.R. Shanmugappa, president of the Federation of Karnataka State Lorry Owners and Agents Association, which organised the strike.
Movement of goods and people was severely affected in several parts of Karnataka over the past two days as over 300,000 commercial vehicles – lorries, maxi cabs and tourist taxis – kept off the roads to protest the government’s plan to install speed governors on them.
While movement of essential goods like milk was exempted from the strike, the agitation had severely affected work at several firms, particularly the IT and BPO companies, which hire maxi cabs to pick and drop their employees.
Many IT and BPO firms had on Monday sent back their women employees early.
Voicing concern of the software industries and BPOs, Nasscom – a consortium of software and BPO companies, had issued a statement Tuesday.
“It is seriously concerned about the impact of the indefinite transporters strike… particularly on service industries like IT and BPO which rely heavily on transport services for their employees,” said the statement.