Chambers peg bandh loss at Rs 12,500 crore

Trade bodies have pegged the loss due to Thursday’s Bharat Bandh between Rs10,000-12,500 crore to the economy.

While the Confederation of Indian Industries pegged the loss at around Rs12,500 crore, ASSOCHAM estimated `10,000 crore loss due to the bandh.

“The Opposition-led Bharat Bandh almost paralyzed the Indian economy and eroded the country’s GDP by Rs10,000 crore thereby hitting the already slowing economy” Assocham  Secretary General D S Rawat said.

Denouncing the bandh,  CII President Adi Godrej said, “It is not often that bold measures are announced to take economic reforms to the next level and whenever such announcements have been made, there have been pain felt by many.”

“While the exact loss for the entire economy is not known, it can be estimated that almost `12,500 crore has been the loss in terms of disruptions in production and trade,” CII said.

Acknowledging the burden placed on the citizen and businesses, FICCI said that it believed that ‘some short term pain will be necessary for long term gain’.