Auto, taxi drivers call off planned protest after meeting with Kerala Transport Minister

Thiruvananthapuram (Kerala) [India], December 30 (ANI): The Confederation of Transport Workers on Wednesday called off the protest by autorickshaws, taxi, and light vehicle owners after meeting with Kerala Transport Minister Antony Raju.
The minister held a discussion with the representatives of unions in Kerala's Thiruvananthapuram on Wednesday.
Speaking to ANI, the Kerala minister said, "Auto taxi employees unions were demanding the revision of auto taxi fare. The government had discussed the issue in detail and decided to consider their demands."
"The government had also appointed Justice Ramachandran committee to examine the demands of various auto taxi unions. We have directed the Justice Ramachandran committee to file a report in one month and after getting the report government will discuss it with unions," Raju said.
Reacting to the meeting with the State Transport Minister, N Unnikrishnan, Confederation of transport workers leader said that the minister has responded positively to the demands of auto taxi unions.
"He has approved most of the demands in our memorandum. The Unions' demand to increase the taxi charge has been approved by the minister and tasked justice Ramachandran Nair commission to revise the fare charge," the Union leader said.
He further stated, "Minister has also agreed to increase the taxi charge within one month so, we have postponed our strike which we have scheduled to start from today midnight."
Govind R Thampi, State General Secretary, BMS Taxi Federation said, "The government agreed to increase the fare charge of the auto taxi, but the main demand forwarded by BMS to the state government was to reduce the fuel tax as other states did. But they have not considered it. So, BMS will conduct a strike tomorrow from 6 am to 6 pm." (ANI)