The Hindu Business Line : Mumbai gets back to work

ON THEIR FEET AGAIN: Commuters going to work in Mumbai on Wednesday. Train services resumed in the city after a series of bomb explosions rocked the suburban railway system on Tuesday. — Paul Noronha

Mumbai , July 12

Showing the greatest measure of confidence in itself, Mumbai declared no official holiday for its children, keeping schools and colleges open today, just a day after a series of bomb blasts that left over 200 dead and more than 600 injured.

The city commuted, worked, transacted, traded and made business with great calm and resolve on Wednesday.

The stock markets rose and bonds ended higher. Not only did the stock market indices end higher, but volumes were higher than normal as well, at over Rs 30,000 crore on the NSE.

The Reserve Bank of India had said that its critical payment systems would function normally on Wednesday and that its auctions would be conducted as scheduled. "We are confident that the systems will go on," said Mr Y.V. Reddy, RBI Governor.

At the airports, which were on high alert, there were no flight cancellations although there were some delays. There were some ticket cancellations, however.

Travellers to India are unlikely to cancel their plans; they might go for some postponement, said airline officials.

Rail and bus services functioned as usual. Although attendance everywhere was thinner than usual and a palpable fear psychosis evident in the air, all corporates and establishments remained open, carrying on with their routines even though some of the fatalities were from their own offices.

SBI, ICICI Bank, Tata Motors, Voltas, LIC, and HSBC, were among the several companies that mourned the loss of an employee or two.

`Fast recovery'

"Had it been any other city, I don't think the recovery would have been so fast. Even London took four days to recover," said Mr Pranay Vakil, Chairman of property consultancy Knight Frank. "In fact, I got a call from London asking me how come I was in office."

He added: "I don't know what the long-term impact will be, but I am going by what I see - 100 per cent staff at their desks at 9.30 a.m. although several reached home only at midnight; 63 women employees still in at 6 p.m. when they are told they can leave at 4.30 pm. Basically nothing has suffered."

Faith in the police and the Government, though, was at an all-time low, while citizens' confidence in each other was reinforced yet again.

People are asking what the Government did considering that as recently as May, large quantities of arms, ammunition and explosives were seized at three different places in Maharashtra - Aurangabad, Yeola, and Malegaon.

Citizens to the rescue

Mr Vijay Mahajan, CEO of Bombay First, an organisation that seeks to make the city a more liveable place, said: "Bombayites, who will not even look at a collapsed man on the road in normal times, were helping each other. But people have complained that they did not see any Railway police anywhere. In fact, the Railway Police Commissioner had recently been transferred to Bhiwandi to take care of the riots there."

In the space of one week, from July 4, the city has been through floods, a state of unrest (when a statue of the late Meenatai Thackeray was allegedly treated with disrespect), and the serial bombing. "When 60 lakh people use the trains everyday, they are a sitting duck for attacks of this kind," said Mr Mahajan.

While all this is not going to affect long-term business plans or the spirit of the city, foreign investment could be affected, according to him.

Several expatriates work in the city and they are going to wonder how they can bring their families over, he said.

The Maharashtra Chief Minister, Mr Vilasrao Deshmukh, convened an all-party meeting where the leaders resolved to punish all those who were behind the blasts and appealed to the people to maintain calm, according to agencies.

"We want the world to know that Mumbai is not worried with such events and we will answer in a befitting manner. The way Mumbaikars came to help each other after the blasts showed the indomitable spirit of Mumbai," said Mr Deshmukh.

When asked about any kind of failure in the intelligence machinery, he said: "Let us not talk such things today. We need time to conduct the investigations and probe is on."

Agency reports said that the police had some leads, although they had made no arrests.