Haryana bears loss of Rs. 18k-20k crore due to ongoing violent agitation

Impressing upon the Haryana government and the Centre to immediately bring under control the deteriorating law and order situation, ASSOCHAM today reported an estimated blow of Rs. 18,000-Rs. 20,000 crore by way of loss to public and private property due to the ongoing violent agitation in Haryana.

Haryana being the transit route with Delhi, Punjab, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh, a number of national highways and trunk railway lines have bared collateral damages to the economic activities to other states in terms of loss to production, transport and movement of people.

While the state government would assess the loss of damage to public property like burning of buses, private vehicles, railways stations, police stations, malls and hotels, the trade, industry and other businesses have come to almost complete halt in most of the districts, barring parts of Gurgaon, Rewari and other few areas on the Delhi-Jaipur National Highway number eight.

The trade and industry loss is maximum in the worst affected areas of Rohtak, Jhajjar, Bahadurgarh, Hissar, Bhiwani, Jind, Gohana, Sonipat, Kaithal, Karnal and Panipat.

"The state administration has to be on top of the situation to control the anti-social elements, causing immense damage to the reputation of the state," ASSOCHAM Secretary General D S Rawat.

Several industries had come up in the past few years, including that of Suzuki on the Delhi-Rohtak highway.

Huge loss of confidence among investors to set up industries in this area would happen, making it imperative for the state administration not to lose further time in reining in the goonda and anti-social elements who are taking advantage of the Jat reservation agitation.

With a population of about three crore people, Haryana has so far been considered a progressive state with the Gross Domestic Product of about Rs 4,50,000 crore coming from industry, trade, agriculture , dairy farming and transport.

It boasts of global business hubs like Gurgaon, which houses top multi-national companies with back-office operations in IT and IT services and automobile giants like Maruti Suzuki.

Incidentally, Maruti Suzuki has stopped production at its Gurgaon and Maneswar plants.

"Hundreds of trucks with thousands of tonnes of goods and hundreds of trains, both goods and passengers have been affected. The current violent agitation would reflect in the balance sheets of not only the corporate, traders but also the state exchequers.