New Delhi: : As truckers head towards an indefinite strike demanding that service tax on diesel be scrapped and toll tax not be imposed in perpetuity, the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways has reason to be concerned.

Lakhs of trucks will be off the roads from midnight on Wednesday, with the All State Transporters’ Association also joining the call by the All India Motor Transport Congress (AIMTC). The two organisations have a combined fleet size of 48,00,000 trucks.

“All the transporters will down their shutters and there will be no movement of goods on the roads till our demands are met by the Government,” said AIMTC president Charan Singh Lohara. “We want ad valorem duty on diesel to be replaced with fixed rate of duty on per litre of the fuel,” he added.

He also said that the Government is using toll taxes on highways as a tool to earn extra revenue by continuing to charge the tax even after recovering investments in the construction of highways. In fact, instead of removing the tax, the Government increased it by 50 per cent in February 2008.