Telangana lorry owners rev up demand for single permit pact with AP

Hyderabad: With the transport corporations of the two Telugu States entering into an agreement, the lorry owners are now demanding the government to take up their issue of 'single permit' with Andhra Pradesh as it has been pending for the last six years.

The State Lorry Owners' Association has been demanding the government to have a single permit system. The single permit is nothing but 'counter signature permit' which provides permit to the State lorries to enter into other States. The single permit would cost Rs 5,000 and be valid for one year. However, the Andhra Pradesh government has been collecting Rs 1,400 per week and Rs 4,600 per month. The lorry owners pay Rs 5,000 to enter into the States of Maharashtra, Karnataka, Chhattisgarh, Tamil Nadu every year. However, they are made to pay more than Rs 55,000 per year leading to losses.

The lorry owners who have lorries for more than 12 years, opt for 'National Permit' by paying Rs 17,000 per year and they can travel anywhere in the country. The lorry owners said that most of them are single vehicle users and driver cum owner basis and it impacts their earnings specially those who have purchased a new vehicle. "Many are driver cum owners and if the agreement is made, many of the owner cum drivers can get the benefit," said the Telangana Lorry Owners' Association president N Bhaskar Reddy.

The lorry owners further alleged that they have been raising this issue for the last six months, but there was no response from Andhra Pradesh. More number of vehicles go to Andhra Pradesh from Telangana with loads of paddy, chilli, coal and other items. Reddy said that while 300 to 500 vehicles travel every day from Telangana to Andhra Pradesh, about 150 vehicles come to Telangana from AP. Hence, the authorities were not keen to look into the issue, they alleged. However, now the lorry owners in AP are also demanding their government to enter into an agreement.

Bhaskar Reddy pointed that the State government said they would look into the issue after agreement of RTCs. He said that they would approach the Transport Minister P Ajay Kumar to pursue the matter with the AP Minister.

It may be recalled that the Minister, when asked about the single permit, had said that the issue would be taken up soon.