The 48-hour bandh call given by the supporters of a separate Telangana brought business

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community to a standstill on Tuesdsay. Among others, the bulk drugs and the transportation segment were hit severely.

According to officials of the Bulk Drug Manufacturers’ Association, the two-day bandh would have a cascading effect on the pharma industry. Official said the local companies would not be in a position to process the overseas orders as they would remain close for two days and in the process may lose out to competitors in China, Brazil or Italy.

“The overseas companies seek quotations from multiple companies in different countries. They will place order if three out of the four companies respond with quotations,” said the official.

Apart from this many companies would suffer from shortage of chemicals with lorries going off the road, and this would affect the processes at pharma companies the official added. “The pharma dynamics have changed and a disruption in the supply chain will hit the margins dearly,” the official said adding that many small and medium bulk drugs and pharma companies were already struggling to achieve a ten per cent margin.

According to Hyderabad Goods Transport Association president and managing director of RCI Logistics Private Pawan Kumar Gupta, about 10,000 vehicles that originate from Hyderabad have stayed off the roads on Tuesday. This has led to a direct loss of employment to as many drivers. Also, each lorry also provides employment to at least five labours everyday, official said.

“We could not move one lakh tonne material on Tuesday,” he said adding that the material in each lorry could be worth Rs 10 lakh implying that goods worth Rs 1,000 crore could not be transported on Tuesday. Lorries staying off the roads for two-days will also lead to diesel stocks remaining largely unspent.

The other thriving segment, IT, however, did not have any big effect of the bandh call. According to official sources, the employee attendance has been about 90 per cent at the IT centres, which was enough to ensure that the transactions of the company were not affected.

The government had also provided additional security at points that were vulnerable to protests, the official said. “We can say there is no impact of the bandh on the IT sector,” said L Suresh Kumar, president of the IT and ITES Industry Association of Andhra Pradesh.

Meanwhile, the banking industry faces a squeeze as they could not collect any deposits but had to dispense cash through ATMs. They had also lost on the fee-based income. “The banks could have lost Rs 100 due to the bandh,” said a senior SBH official. Singareni Collieries Company Limited (SCCL), India’s second largest coal producer, said it would require a month to recover the loss of production due to bandh.

Miner employs 68,000 people. Its operations are spread in Telangana region. About 60,000 employees stayed away from their duties on Tuesday. According to S Narsing Rao, the CMD of SCCL, the loss of production could be about 1,50,000 tonne a day and this would translate into a revenue loss of Rs 4.5 crore for two-day bandh period.