Prepare now for a third COVID-19-wave: Thackeray to India Inc

Warning of a possible third wave of Covid19 Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray on Saturday appealed to India Inc to make allout preparations to counter it right now and ensure it doesnt hit the states industry and economyUrging the corporate houses and industrialists to collaborate with the state government to combat the current and upcoming crises Thackeray said India Inc could contribute immediately by setting up Covid care facilities on their plants and premises and plans Covidcompatible workplaces for the futurePresently the state is in dire need of oxygen and currently the entire production is being utilised for medical purposes Given the number of new patients coming up daily around 60K daily we need a lot more oxygen for which the industries can help out Thackeray said in an interaction with some of the leading business houses and corporate groupsHealth Secretary Dr Pradeep Vyas said that the state is conducting 3lakh tests per million population and though the death rate is low the infections are very highHe requested the industries to start setting up small oxygen plants in their premises to absorb natural oxygen based on new technologies and provide the entire production oxygen for medical purposesThe meeting with Thackeray was attended by leading India Inc players like Niranjan Hiranandani Uday Kotak Deepak Mukhi Harsh Goenka Naushad Forbes Sulajja Firodia Sameer Somaiya S N Subramanian Salil Parekh Neel Raheja Sanjeev Bajaj Anant Goenka Baba Kalyani Anant Singhania B Thagarajan Banamali Agarwal Ashwin Yardi Sunil Mathur Sanjeev Singh Ashish Agarwal representatives of FICCI CII and others industry bodiesRepresenting top corporate houses or groups like Tata Reliance LampT Infosys JSW Mahindra amp Mahindra Godrej Blue Star Kinetic Engineering and many more the representatives unanimously assured that they were with the state government in this critical hour while interacting with the CM Industry Minister Subhash Desai Health Minister Rajesh Tope and top officialsResponding favourably to Thackerays suggestion the corporate honchos committed to make available oxygen provide testing and vaccination centres isolation areas creating special systems for the health of all their workers and employees developing systems to encourage Work From Home and other Covidappropriate measuresThackeray called upon the corporate world to ensure that in view of the Covid waves all steps must be taken to prevent their adverse impact on the industry and the economy due to unavoidable pandemic lockdowns or stringent normsThe CM directed Chief Secretary Sitaram Kunte to set up an Industry Task Force which would work in tandem in future with the state government on all aspects of Covid type of health emergenciesThackeray asked the industrialists to take up welfare activities like Shiv Bhojan Thali for the poor in cities or local villages through the CSR route to minimise the impact of the Covid waves on the most vulnerable sections of societyThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever