"The federation is planning to pre-pone the indefinite strike which was earlier slated for December", said Sharad Srivastava, secretary general of the All India Appraisers Association (AIAA).

The CCF is likely to meet in a day or two in Mumbai to take final decision on the indefinite strike. "We haven't got positive response from either the Central Board of Excise and Customs (CBEC) or the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT)", said JP Sharma, president, Central Excise and Customs Executive Officers Federation.

Around 1.7 lakh employees from all over India are on strike since November 10. In Mumbai, around 25,000 employees belonging to the B, C and D groups of the customs, excise and income-tax departmentsare participating in the stir demanding removal of post-pay commission disparity in wages.

It will cost around Rs 15 crore annually for the exchequer if the demands of the unions are met. "We are not demanding immediate payment but the first two years payment to be deposited in the provident fund account", said Sharma.

According to him, around Rs 300 to Rs 400 crore is the daily collection nation-wide from all the three revenue departments. The annual collection target for these department is Rs 1,75,000 crore.

He claimed that over 150 trucks are held up at the Indo-Nepal border. "The cargo clearance at the Indo-Pak border have also been hit", he added.

The unions claimed that the revenue collections at the air cargo collections during the strike period were around Rs 25 lakh per day as against daily collection of Rs 10 crore. The complex rakes in around Rs 250 crore annually.

At the complex around 100 customs employees are posted. These includes appraisers, examiners and preventive officers.During the strike, the work of these 100 employees was handled by around 20 officers.

The customs officials, however, claimed that the collections were normal. According to YG Parande, commissioner of customs, imports, Mumbai, the average daily collection from the city in October was Rs 30.76 crore.

On November 9 ( a day before the strike), the average collection was around Rs 38 crore. On three days of the strike, the collections increased by Rs 18.2 crore, Rs 26.3 crore and Rs 25.33 crore, respectively.

Parande confirmed that the cargo imported by the public sector companies and the government was given a green signal while clearance for other cargo was generally more relaxed.

At the docks, fifty per cent of the work was affected, Sources at the Jawaharlal Nehru Port (JNP) confirmed that dock work was partially affected as the passing of the shipping bills by the customs slowed down considerably.

In the wake of the strike, JNPT decided to extent the cut-off time by 24 hours. The gate operations atthe port were reportedly not affected by the strike.