Though the strike impacted sectors like transport, coal and non-coal mines, banking and insurance, steel and cement, among others, the overall response could be termed as moderate as only 16-18% of the country?s workforce failed to report for work without prior intimation on Friday, said a senior labour ministry official.
The labour ministry data, complied with feedback from across the country, showed that apart from the states mentioned above, the impact of the strike was felt only in Jharkhand, Odisha and Uttarakhand, while in other states, including the national capital region, normalcy prevailed.
Among industrial activities, the non-coal mining sector was the worst hit, where only 39% people reported for work. Banking and insurance was also hit as almost half of the workforce remained absent in the country. As much as 92% of the financial sector employees in Odisha skipped duty. The coal sector was also hit with only 49% workforce reporting for duty. The steel sector saw an average of 55% attendance, labour ministry data showed, even as PSU SAIL claimed 94% of its over 80,000 employees turned up.The income tax department, however, surprised us all. Barring senior officials, hardly any presence was there in country’s I-T offices. Nothing like this has happened before, a labour ministry official said.
The impact of the strike was also noticed in state-run telecom firms such as BSNL, MTNL and in defence factories, power and cement firms, but had negligible impact in the ports and aviation sectors. The Delhi government invoked ESMA against the strike call by nurses.
While no official estimate was immediately available of the losses the agitation of Sept 2 caused to the economy, industry body Assocham said it could be around Rs 18,000 crore.