Mumbai, Jan 1 (IANS): Thousands of truckers on Monday launched protests against the stringent new Motor Vehicles Act of the Centre, with several major inter-state highways and important thoroughfares within Maharashtra being blocked, officials said.

The stir hit movement of trucks and big and small vehicles in Thane, Palghar, Nashik, Nagpur, Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar, Jalna, Buldhana, Yavatmal, Gondia, and other parts of the state, leading to massive traffic snarls several kilometres long.

The busy Mumbai-Ahmedabad Highway was among the worst-hit with hundreds of trucks lined up as the drivers and owners struck work, squatted on the roads, and raised slogans against the government.

At some places, the truckers resorted to burning tyres on the roads to stop the traffic, at other places they took out processions condemning the government and demanded a rollback of the stringent provisions in the new MV Act.

When police resorted to mild caning to clear the traffic near Raigad, some persons said to be truckers, pounced on a policeman with sticks and chased him, and even tried to stop some private vehicles attempting to break their road-blocks.

Under the new provisions, any truck driver involved in any hit-and-run accident will face criminal prosecution and shall be liable for 10 year jail and a fine of Rs 700,000.

All India Transporters’ Welfare Association CEO J. P. Singla said that usually, its small vehicles like cars or two-wheelers which are guilty in hit-and-run accidents, not truckers. “Just think… Where will the trucker go and hide with such a huge truck…? In many accident cases, the angry local mobs either hammer them badly or even kill the driver,” Singla said.

AITWA Mumbai spokesperson Mahindra Arya said that Monday’s protests are spontaneously organised through some localised associations, but the national-level bodies of truckers have not yet decided on an agitation plan.

Besides the Mumbai-Ahmedabad, other important thoroughfares hit were the Mumbai-Agra Highway, Nagpur-Bhopal Highway, Kolkata-Nagpur-Mumbai Highway, and traffic was affected on several other inter-state highways since dawn.

In Thane, even drivers of oil tankers of PSUs IOCL, BPCL, and HPCL joined the stir, jamming the Mumbai-Thane highway near Mira Road, seeking a repeal of the draconian laws.

Attempting to clear the highways, the Gondia police detained a dozen truckers after they burnt tyres on the roads to stop vehicular movement, and similar agitation was carried out in Buldhana.