India's rice and wheat exports, already hit by non-availability of railway wagons, have further slowed due to a nationwide strike by truckers, traders and port officials said on Monday.

"As it was, India's grain exports were in a mess, now it's messier," said Atul Chaturvedi, president of Adani Exports Ltd, a merchandise trading firm.

Nearly 2.7 million trucks are off the roads for the last eight days following a strike called by the All India Motor Transport Congress, the biggest union of truck operators.

The truckers are demanding stable fuel prices, immunity from a planned value added tax, repeal of an order to scrap old trucks, an end to toll fees and minimum freight rates.

They vowed on Monday to continue the strike if their demands were not met.

Traders said rice exports, which had fallen due to non-availability of railway wagons and higher prices in recent months, had further dipped due to the truckers' strike.

"The rice was being moved primarily on trucks from rural granaries to the ports. With the strike, even that's stopped," said an official of commodity trading house in the southern city of Hyderabad.

At least four vessels, meant to load rice from Kandla, were anchored off the port due to inability of exporters to move grain to the port, R T Revankar, the port's traffic manager, said.

Traders said rice exports from India had fallen to around 60,000 tonnes per month from 300,000 to 400,000 a month a year earlier.

Indian rice, subsidised by the government, is exported mainly to West Africa, the Middle East and South East Asia.

Exporters could either cite a force majeure or negotiate with buyers to avoid heavy demurrage charges, a trader said.

Traders said wheat exports had slowed too.

"The strike has aggravated the situation. Nobody is taking positions now," said Chaturvedi.

Traders said the government's preference to movement of food grain through rail wagons to drought-affected areas had already slowed the momentum of wheat exports.

"Exporters are now getting rakes for intends placed in January. So, now I will first get my cargo ready in the port and then sell it," said another trader.

India shipped a combined 8.7 million tonnes of rice and wheat in 2002, up from 2.6 million tonnes the previous year.