The Hindu Business Line : Strike hits normal life in Bengal

Normal life across West Bengal was affected on Monday following the launch of an indefinite non-cooperation movement by the Trinamool Congress, a simultaneous call for a 24-hour strike by the Congress and a 48-hour strike by the BJP and the Socialist Unity Centre of India, in protest against the recent developments in Nandigram.

Most offices remained shut and private transport kept off the roads for most part of the day. Incidents of violence were reported from several areas within the city and districts as well.

A few buses were damaged and around 1,100 people were arrested across the State. One company of the Central Reserve Police Force has been deployed in Nandigram, where the situation has officially been described as “tense but peaceful”.

‘Near-normal operations’

Mr Nirupam Sen, West Bengal’s Minister for Industries and Commerce, told reporters that some industries located in and around Kolkata were impacted by the strike. Near normal operations were reported at Durgapur Steel Plant and IISCO, Burnpur. Operations were near normal in the coal belt and the industrial belt of Howrah.

The operations at Sector V of the Salt Lake Electronics Complex, the state’s IT hub, was also reported as close to normal. Employees of most call centres reportedly logged in at office late on Sunday night or early Monday morning. They were expected to stay back at their offices overnight. A senior executive of a call centre said operations “were not in full swing but in a contained manner”.

When contacted, the Principal Secretary in West Bengal’s IT Department, Mr Siddharth, said the 24X7 segment of the IT industry had functioned “more or less normally”.

Train services hit

Airlines reported normal flight operations with load factors of flights that left in the morning being “pretty high” and in the evening being “decent”.

Train services, however, were affected. Several long distance trains were cancelled even as some of them were short-terminated before their final destination stations.

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