Hyderabad: With over 15 lakh lorries and trucks going off the roads for a week now, the supply of vegetables and other essential commodities to city markets has been drastically affected on Wednesday.

The association announced that the strike will be intensified and expanded to all over the country from Friday.

According to official sources, only half the quantity of average supply of vegetables were transported to city's wholesale markets. The truckers have been on an indefinite strike since March 30 demanding that the Centre and the state governments should reduce the third party insurance prices; cut challan and toll fees, and other Regional Transport Authority (RTA) fees. The Association is also demanding a single permit system for Andhra Pradesh and Telangana.

The South India Motor Transport Association (SIMTA) which is coordinating the strike first exempted vegetables and other essential commodities from the strike now decided to stop them as several rounds of talks with the government failed. SIMTA member and Telangana Lorry Owners Association secretary G. Durga Prasad said vegetables, milk, gas cylinders and other essential commodities too wll be stopped from Thursday.

One of demands by the Association include roll back of hike in VAT on diesel and to withdraw the proposal to scrap 15-year old vehicles.

The strike which is confined to southern states of Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Pondicherry and Kerala will be expanded to all over India from April 8, SIMTA said.