Partners in Bengaluru down shutters on Cauvery row

The state-wide bandh called by various political and social organizations here last week had high impact across the state impacting all the business outlets including the IT industry.

In SP road, the IT hub of Karnataka, all the shops were kept closed. "No shop was kept opened and usually the average-sale would be around 3lakh from one shop which might have resulted in around 1 crore-worth of sale across the 200-odd shops in the street", says Dinesh Pareek, CEO, Ankit Infotech, Bengaluru. However, Vinay Mehta, CEO, Computer Warehouse, puts it in the other way. "Of course the business used to be very high during the weekends rather than a normal working day. However, one partners' business would have not gone anywhere as no one had opened the shop on that day." Mehta also said that the business in the coming weekend will replace the last Saturday's sale. The members of the Association of Information Technology (AIT), the association based out of Bengaluru has also closed their shops on the day. "In fact, the dull-mood started even from Friday as we did not work" said Nalin R Patel, president, AIT. Patel also extended the association's support for the Karnataka government. "Even though we cannot involve in the political issues of the government, considering the water situation of the state, we have extended our support and have decided to close the shop", he concluded.

Upcountry scan:

In Mysore, all the shops were kept closed for the whole day according to the channel partners from the city. "We do not know whether the partners opened the shop after 6pm. However, according to my fellow partners, no one was opening their shops on that day".Surprisingly in Manglore, the growing hub of the state was not affected by the situation. "The situation was normal here and not only IT partners, but all the business functionaries were working normal", said Gopinath Pai, former president of the IT association in Manglore.