The 12-hour bandh, which brought Bangalore to a standstill, failed to affect the booming IT and BPO industry in the city. The industry achieved this by a three-fold strategy - postponing the work, which can be put off, diverting work to other Indian centres and by asking the Tuesday's night shift to stay on and man the operations till 1800.

Most BPOs opened their shop to support the clients' critical functions with 50 per cent workforce. Said a spokesperson for Infosys BPO, which focuses on non-voice business: "We have updated the clients on the bandh. We are working at 50 per cent strength to support the critical operations."

Conspicuous by their absence from city roads on Wednesday were the buses and cabs ferrying BPO and IT employees to their workplace. "For the staff who were on night shift on Tuesday, we have made arrangements to spend time till 1800 on Wednesday and they will be dropped back after the bandh is lifted in the evening," said another industry official.

On the other hand, the story for voice-based BPOs is different.

"Our work mainly starts after 6 pm and the bandh will have a minimal impact on our operations. The works, which have to be done through out the day, have been diverted to our other centres in Hyderabad and elsewhere," said an official at 24/7Customer.

Dell India spokesperson said: "Certain duties were suspended and majority of them were been routed to other centres. We will compensate it by working on Saturday."

While this is the case with the BPO sector, the software services sector took the day off to work on Saturday.