The government had been criticized greatly after its recent decision of the 51% of FDI in retail going as far as a nationwide bandh on Thursday protesting against the Foreign Direct Investment in multibrand retail and also the fuel hike. It was estimated that there was a loss of over 12,500 crore rupees (2.25 billion USD) to the Indian Economy according to the Confederation of Indian Industry, CII’s report on Thursday.

"Today's bandh (strike) has been disruptive for business and trade in many parts of the country. While an exact loss for the entire economy is not known, it can be estimated that almost  Rs.12,500 crore has been the loss to the country in terms of disruptions in production and trade," the CII said. 
CII asked the government to be firm on its stand and not roll back to the previous norms succumbing to the political pressure. It mentioned that good economics never match with good politics and that emphasizes the need for the government to make the people understand the merits of the reforms and how mandatory such a change was.

BJP and Communist party leaders had united to denounce the government and its decisions taken recently.
Other UPA allies such as Trinamool Congress and others had also protested against the decisions but were not taking part in the strikes today.

The president of CII, Adi Godrej mentioned that the political fraternity come together to combat the present situation of the nation’s economy and ensure that the reforms were carried out.
He said that though the reforms may bring pain to many communities initially, the fruits of the not-so-mainstream reforms would be evident soon just like the bohemian reforms of the nineties; the results of which are evident now.

(AW- Anil)