The day-long industrial strike called by Left trade unions on Wednesday brought West Bengal and Kerala came to a grinding halt but rail, road and air services remained largely unaffected in rest of the country.

With the ruling Left Front governments supporting the strike called to protest against surging inflation and the Centre's "anti-people" economic policies, there was a complete shut down in West Bengal with disruption in air and rail traffic.

The strikers did not spare the vital IT sector in Salt Lake in Kolkata from the purview of the strike. Flights to Kolkata were cancelled due to the strike by airport employees. While life was paralysed in Kerala, air services remained unaffected in the state.

Inspector General (Law and Order), Raj Kanojia said in Kolkata that no untoward incident was reported from any part of the state but train services were disrupted with protesters squatting on the rail track at several places. Additional policemen and Rapid Action Force personnel were deployed in the city to maintain law and order, police said.

Airports Authority of India officials said in New Delhi  that going by the number of flight across the country, the schedules were running "almost normally". Besides flight to Kolkata, some flights to Mumbai were also affected by the strike, they said.

Airport sources said in Kolkata that more than a hundred passengers who came late Tuesday night were stranded. While no flight landed, seven flights, including two international ones - British Airways' flight from Kolkata to London and Jet Airways' flight from Kolkata to Dhaka - took off early Wednesday morning.

AAI officials said some flights to Pune and Guwahati were also cancelled.

As many as 250 Indian Air Force personnel were deployed at 21 airports as part of a contingency plan to maintain critical services in the wake of the strike called by major trade unions barring the Congress-affiliated INTUC.

Opposing any further privatisation or leasing out of airports, hundreds of AAI employees staged a demonstration here demanding better pay and job security in Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore, Hyderabad and Nagpur airports.

CPI leader Gurudas Dasgupta claimed thousands of central government workers from Posts and Telegraph department, defence production sector and ports joined the strike protesting against unfair treatment meted out to them in the Sixth Pay Commission report.

Ports in Kolkata, Haldia and Visakhapatnam were affected by the stir, he told PTI, adding that "complete bandh" was being observed in Jharkhand, Manipur and Assam besides West Bengal, Kerala and Tripura.

"We will prolong our agitation if the Congress-led UPA Government does not roll back their anti-people policies after today's strike," CITU President M K Pandhe said.

Dasgupta said several hundred protesting trade unionists and farmers were arrested in Assam and Orissa.

Reports from Thiruvananthapuram and Agartala said normal life was paralysed with shops and business establishments remaining closed and public transport remaining off the roads.

While trains were held up in various stations in Kerala, no attendance was recorded in government offices, banks and public sector undertaking like ONGC and Gail India Ltd in Tripura.

Main market places, business establishments, petrol pumps and banks remained closed in Bhubaneshwar where left activists blocked traffic by picketing at several places.

The strike also affected parts of Assam, including Guwahati, as hundreds of activists of CPI, CPI-M, CPI-ML and AISF attempted to block movement of trains and traffic on national highways.

A report from Chennai said the strike failed to evoke a response in Tamil Nadu. The ruling DMK's trade union wing Labour Progressive Front extended "moral support" to the stir but did not participate in it.

The 24-hour shutdown evoked a poor response in the Bharatiya Janata Party-ruled Himachal Pradesh too. 

Markets, business establishments, schools and colleges were open across the state. Inspector General of Police S R Mardi said the situation was peaceful.

The strike also did not make an impact in Chhattisgarh, the police said. 

"There is no impact of the strike," Girdhari Nayak, the state's additional director general of police said.

Rail and road traffic were normal and flights took off and landed on time. Protesters belonging to Left trade unions held demonstrations in the state capital's busy Motibagh area.