Amid a surge in COVID cases in the coal belt region, the government-owned Singareni Collieries Company Limited (SCCL) intensified testing by providing adequate number of rapid testing kits in SCCL’s main hospital and area hospitals across the region.
Sources said that the coal belt region spanning six districts recorded a little over 2,000 COVID cases in the past fortnight. These included SCCL employees like coal workers, several of their family members and outsourced workers, sources added.
To stem the spread of the coronavirus infections, the SCCL authorities have instructed the General Managers of all the 11 Areas to step up testing and also spraying of the disinfectant solution in the coal mines, various departments and the residential colonies in the coal belt region.
Adequate number of rapid testing kits, home isolation kits, masks, and sanitisers have been made available in all the 11 Areas of the company. COVID quarantine centres and a total of 1,578 beds have been kept ready to meet any exigency, sources added.
The spurt in COVID cases, albeit mostly mild and asymptomatic, has become a cause of concern for the coal mining giant in view of the surge in cases during the current peak production months at the fag end of the fiscal.
