Unit secretary Ashok Tamgadag said the entire staff of low power relay station went on strike. He said non shift duty officers at some centres tried to carry on work but the engineering staff of day duty joined the strike.

The work at Ahmedabad and the other 46 centres in the State came to a standstill, he claimed.

In Bhuj, the work at the DD relay station was disrupted, with staff participating in the strike for the first time.

Joint secretary K G Johnson of the Bhuj unit of Association of Radio and Television Engineering Employees claimed the strike was total and said the studios and transmitters building here and Kukma, some 14 km away, remained locked. This time two Class-I seniors, who ran the show, had been sent on special duty to Ahmedabad. He said there was no engineer available to begin morning transmission.

According to him, the strike is because Union Information and Broadcasting Minister Pramod Mahajan did not announce anything within the stipulated time as per his promise during the previous strike.The stir may continue indefinitely if the demands are not met, he said.

In Rajkot, however, transmission was not affected seriously as senior staff took over in the absence of the subordinates who joined the strike.

ARTEE unit secretary B G Gosain said the employees had been resorting to strike in a phased manner. They did not take salaries on November 30 and went on a 48-hour token strike from December 11.