The two-day bandh call given by the political Joint Action Committee (JAC) from today affected industrial activity in the Telangana region with most units in all major industrial estates in and around Hyderabad voluntarily downing shutters.
The bandh affected key sectors like pharma, bulk drug, engineering and manufacturing sectors in and around the state capital. Even big companies like Dr Reddy's and Hetero Drugs had to stop work at their facilities.
On the assurance given by political parties belonging to Telangana that they would not allow production to be disrupted in industrial units, a senior management representative of a pharma company said: "No one listens to anyone on the ground, more so when three separate joint action committees are competing with each other to establish their control."
The companies were forced to take preemptive measures to avoid confrontation with the agitators. Although the state government has deployed adequate security personnel, it did not help much, said an industry representative.
IT companies, however, were functional but attendance was marginally low. Infotech Limited said its workplaces were running normally. With public transport off the road, several companies had arranged for vehicles to ferry employees from far-off places. The pro-Telangana political outfits had stayed away from the Hitec City area, which houses all major IT companies. Security in the area is high because software companies were under the Essential Services Maintenance Act of the state government.
About 60,000 coal mine workers of state-owned Singareni Collieries Company Limited (SCCL) joined the bandh and mining operations in the coalfields spread across four districts in the region were stopped. "Some work was reported from Bellampally and Mandamarri mines in Adilabad district, but there was a complete bandh in other areas,” S Chandrasekhar, general manager (coordination) of Singareni Collieries Company, told Business Standard.