Soon after an employee at Maruti Suzuki India’s Manesar plant tested positive for the coronavirus, three employees at Hyundai Motors’ Chennai plant have also tested positive for the virus.
The recent development of positive coronavirus cases in workers at two of India’s biggest carmakers comes just days after restarting operations, exposing the risks companies and the government face in kick starting the economy.
“In the first week of our plant operations, three of our employees have shown mild symptoms of cough and cold and were immediately asked to meet the medical expert team for further evaluation. They subsequently tested positive for COVID-19 and immediate medical attention was provided to them,” Hyundai Motors India Limited said in a statement.
All three employees are recovering fast towards normalcy and as per the safety protocol, essential information was shared with the district health authorities, it added.
In addition to that all the necessary measures are being taken for contact tracing, self-isolation and complete sanitation, the South Korean firm said.
Well-being of employees is of utmost priority to the company and as a responsible brand it is adhering to all the guidelines set by the Centre, state and district health authorities, HMIL said.
According to a Reuters report, test results of sixteen more workers who possibly came into contact with the infected employees are expected over the next two days.
“The state’s policy is to not let the industry stall,” said P Ponniah, the top bureaucrat in the Kancheepuram district where Hyundai’s plant is located. He said parts of the plant visited by the employees would be sanitised, a process likely to take 3-4 days during which time staff would be barred from those areas.
Hyundai’s employees union has written to management and the Tamil Nadu state government, urging the company to immediately test all workers at its own expense, president E Muthukumar told Reuters.
These cases show the risks and challenge Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government faces in restarting automobile production in an effort to revive the economy after a near two-month lockdown to fight the spread of the coronavirus.
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