Mitra: Action call

New Delhi, Nov. 29 (PTI): Apex industry associations today expressed confidence that business would be back to virtually normal from Monday despite the worst-ever terror strike in Mumbai.

However, industry today asked the government to take the strongest measures against terrorism to prevent the repeat of the likes of the three-day nightmare that the country’s financial capital witnessed.

“We expect that the commitments made by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh of tougher laws against terrorists and single centralised agency to deal with such situations will come into force soon,” Ficci secretary-general Amit Mitra said and added that overdue police reforms needed to be set in motion.

The Prime Minister had stated on Thursday that the “strongest possible measures” would be taken to deal with terrorists and their supporters.

Mitra expressed confidence in the resilience of the Indian economy, as was shown by the stock market yesterday, even when the gun battle was going on at different places in Mumbai.

“This is an indication of how India and its people take these dastardly activities of terrorists in stride,” he said.

Confident that Mumbai would recover fast, Assocham secretary-general D.S. Rawat estimated over Rs 4,000-crore loss from the deadly attacks. “The worst-hit sector could be tourism. The number of tourists has already declined by 10 per cent and the message gone worldwide will further affect the inflows by at least 25 per cent in the peak season.”

CII director-general Chandrajit Banerjee said India must show to the world that it could “deal with terrorism effectively. Industry looks for an institutionalised and administrative mechanism, which will give a strong signal”.