Normal life in Balangir town was badly affected on Tuesday due to the 12-hour strike as per a Bharat Bandh, the call for which was given by the organisation Unity for Equality demanding reservation facility to economically-backward sections of people.
Shops and other business establishments remained closed. Both Government and private buses were off the roads; and schools and colleges, petrol pumps, post offices and banks also remained shut.
Pro-bandh activists held road blockades burning tyres and picketed before different offices. Unity for Equality president Jyoti Panigrahi said, “We demand reservation for economically-backward and physically-handicapped, sons and daughters of martyrs and for orphans.”
A large number of people here believe that the caste-based reservation policy should either be curtailed or totally abolished.