A bandh was forced on West Bengal on Monday and it disrupted life with air and rail services hit hardest. Unlike the last few bandhs, the IT & ITeS sectors were not kept out of the bandh purview and that brought down attendance by 10-15%.
The 12-hour nationwide strike called mainly by the Left to protest against the Centre’s ?failure? to check price rise, had a direct impact on the state?s IT hub at Rajarhat Newtown.
?Many of the IT companies were closed today. Those which were open had an average attendance of around 40-50%,? said Kalyan Kar, MD, Acclaris.
Tech Mahindra had sent e-mails to its employees saying that there might be untoward incidents and asked its employees to come before 6 in the morning. Of about 1,000 employees working in its sector V office, around 30% were present on Monday, said sources. IBM Daksh had asked its employees on Sunday night and made arrangements for their stay inside office premises.
?ITeS had larger attendance which went up to around 65-80%,? said Kar. ?But employees are a bit sceptic as the IT sector was not excluded this time,? he added.
Train services on Eastern Railway?s all four divisions including Sealdah, Howrah, Asansol and Malda were disrupted due to obstructions at several stations by bandh supporters since early morning. ?Even in some cases disruptions started much earlier than 6 am, when the bandh was scheduled to begin,? said an ER spokesperson.
Roads were deserted in Kolkata and in the rest of the state as well, as no transport was available. Shops and educational institutions were closed. While chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee attended office, none of his ministers were present. Employees chose not to come to Writers? Building.
According to airport sources, 40% of the domestic and international flights took off on Monday morning. While fights of Air-India, Jet Airways and Jetlite took off as scheduled in the morning, services of other private airlines were hit with passengers stranded at the airport.
All 800 branches of State Bank of India in the state were closed although more than 400 ATMs were open. ?Our employees could not come so all of our 87 branches in Kolkata were closed,? said an Allahabad Bank official. All of 35 ATMs of United Bank of India were opened. ?We doubled the money loading on Sunday,? said a UBI spokesperson.
