Container lorry stir ends; user fee revoked till February 12

KOCHI: The tussle over the toll charges on the Vallarpadam-Kalamassery Container Road stretch got a partial relief on Friday after Ernakulam District Collector Mohammed Y Safirulla ordered to withdraw the user fee collection for the time being.

As per the decision taken following talks with the striking container lorry owners, no user fee will be imposed on the Container Road till 8 am on February 12 for trucks with 20-40 feet size. The meeting was convened by Safirulla at the Collectorate, where the stakeholders, including the striking container lorry owners, attended.

The container lorry owners have been boycotting the stretch since the new user fee charges came into effect about five days ago, affecting the export business from Cochin Port. The Collector had directed the police to take stringent action against the protesters after some went berserk after the NHAI imposed the toll.

Around 200 container lorries have been staying off the road since the toll collection was started. Meanwhile, the Cochin Port dispatched 30 containers on Friday (26 containers having tiles and four containers having rice) via coastal mode to Beypore port near Kozhikode in north Kerala.

The containers were dispatched in the River Sea Vessel (RSV) Great Sea Vembanadu. Shifting of above containers via coastal mode instead of road, was necessitated due to the strike by container trailer operators. The RSV has brought 43 empty containers from Beypore to Kochi.