Over 50 per cent of the 2-lakh autorickshaws plying in TN will keep off the roads on Thursday, as trade unions belonging to the CPM (CITU), CPI (AITUC) and DMK have announced a statewide protest condemning the steep hike in petrol prices.
And, several hundreds of shops and hotels are likely to down shutters as the Tamil Nadu state traders association has also announced a one-day strike against the Centre’s various measures, including petrol price hike.
However, bus services will remain unaffected, according to the transport officials.
Being a muhurtham day, many weddings happening on Thursday may be affected to some extent by the strike.
The autorickshaws are participating in the strike as part of the Bharat bandh call given by the Left parties and NDA. Mr M.S. Rajendiran, general secretary, Tamil Nadu auto drivers confederation, said over 50,000 autos would keep off the roads in Chennai while 10,000 autos might ply.
“We will also participate in the strike to register our protest against various anti-traders policies of the Centre,” said Mr Vellayan, president, federation of state traders association.
BJP state president Pon. Radhakrishnan has called upon all parties, organisations and traders associations to support the NDA-sponsored bandh.
MTC earns Rs3 crore a day
The city public transport provider, Metropolitan Transport Corporation (MTC), seems to have made the most during the recent fuel crisis. It earned a whopping `3 crore in a single day during the fuel shortage.
The corporation has indirectly benefited from the fuel scarcity that affected several thousand motorists for over five days.
“On Monday, MTC earned close to Rs3 crore and the collections were Rs2.84 crore the next day; the daily average being Rs2.70 crore,” sources in the MTC told this newspaper on Wednesday, the day when the fuel crisis eased in the city.
They, however, added that collections on Monday were a bit higher than Tuesday as normally the first day of the week draws more crowd than other days. The collection of AC buses had also increased compared to other days as it registered average collections of Rs14, 000 per bus.
“Collections have generally increased over the past few days but we do not know whether it is directly linked to the fuel scarcity or not,” said an official.
Several Chennaiites resorted to MTC buses and local trains as they left their vehicles at home owing to the fuel scarcity.