The country wide bandh called against fuel price rise on Monday led to as much as 40% decline in average credit card transactions across the country. Trend analysis has revealed that Kolkata and Mumabai have been the two worst affected cities with a 80% dip in credit card transactions from the normal levels.

The statistics was calculated by Venture Infotek, a card processing company. "One out of every three credit card transactions in India are processed by Venture Infotek. The transactions processed by us represent 35% of credit card transactions in India, and are therefore, representative of the behaviour of India's credit card population," said Venture Infotek managing director Piyush Khaitan.

"The 12-hour bandh saw the market come alive post 6 pm, surprisingly with 6% higher card swipes taking place compared with Venture Infotek's forecast figure. However, during the 6 am to 6 pm time slot, we witnessed 50% lower than usual card swipes across India," added Mr Khaitan.

"Our research team uses a monitoring mechanism based on Winter's Forecasting Model and Regression Analysis to predict minute-by-minute count of transactions much in advance. In the past, we have been able to effectively forecast the level of transactions expected on a particular day," said Mr Khaitan.