Mumbai: Air India (AI) has curtailed its services from Mumbai to Far East and Gulf region and Chennai-Dubai by one flight each in view of a drop in the passenger load in the wake of the US-led strikes in Iraq.

With effect from April 1, the airline has cut one flight each per week from Mumbai to Hong Kong, Bangkok-Tokyo, Jeddah, Doha-Bahrain and Chennai-Dubai, an airline spokesman said.

The spokesman said an evaluation of the passenger loads of all flights was undertaken last week and a decision was taken to reduce the frequency by one flight each on these sectors.

Asked if any flights to Hong Kong and Bangkok were cancelled in view of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) outbreak, the spokesman said flights have been curtailed mainly due to drop in the load. "If it was SARS it would have called for more drastic reduction," he said.

AI will now operate three flights to Bangkok-Tokyo and four services per week to Hong Kong, he added.

Kolkata: Traders in West Bengal downed their shutters for the second day on April 1 in protest against Value-Added Tax (VAT), even as the state government deferred its implementation from April 1.

Mahesh Kumar Singhania, chairman of Federation of West Bengal Trade Associations, said that shops throughout the state remained closed for the second consecutive day.

Despite state Finance Minister's appeal to the traders on March 31 to come for talks without going for bandh, he said that Dasgupta did not say that he would not introduce VAT.

''We have gone ahead with the bandh since we are opposed to VAT,'' he said.

Singhania, however, said that they would hold dialogue with the state government on April 12 on this issue.

The Finance Minister had stated that the government could not introduce VAT from April 1 as it has not received the final approval of the President on the Bill for introducing VAT.

PTI