However, Secretary of the Vadodara Chamber of Commerce and Industry Ranjan Munshi said there had been no adverse effect on industry and business as the strike was a token one and also because industrialists and businessmen were aware of it.

According to Central Excise and Customs officials here, the daily loss to the government exchequer by way of non-collection of customs and import duty was estimated to be Rs 20 crore.

While talking to Express Newsline on Wednesday, Gujarat Central Excise and Customs Gazetted Officers' Association president V P Ranadive claimed that work at all the inland container depots in Vadodara, Surat and Ahmedabad and the freight container depot in Ahmedabad and Kandla customs house had been badly affected by the strike.

While he pointed out that since most of the warehouses at ports and ICD were privately owned, importers and exporters would suffer losses in terms of demurrage charges, which they would have to pay for storage beyond the due date because of non-clearance of goods, Additional Commissioner (Excise and Customs) A P Verma said assistant commissioners and ministerial staff, who are not on strike, had been deployed to ensure that export and import cargo was cleared.

Secretary of Income Tax Employees' Federation J N Patel that functioning in the IT office had come to a standstill due to 500 gazetted and non-gazetted officers of groups A, B, C and D joining the strike. Ranadive and Patel said though a high-level committee had been appointed at the instance of Yashwant Sinha to look into the matter, nothing was done.