Nokia shutters manufacturing plant as employees test positive for Covid-19

Nokia’s Tamil Nadu based telecom gear manufacturing plant has had to close down abruptly after a few employees tested positive for Covid-19.

The decision for closure came last week after 42 employees of the Finnish brand’s Sriperumbudur plant located in near Chennai tested positive for the coronavirus.

While Nokia remained silent about the actual number of workers testing positive at its Sriperumbudur plant, an official privy to the situation revealed that at least 42 had been infected by the virus.

It appears that social distancing and making alterations to canteen facilities as a precautionary measure against the pandemic were not enough.

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Hoping for resuming operations soon

In a statement issued by Nokia, the company maintained that the factory resumed operations in a ‘restricted manner’ over the past few weeks when the federal government lifted lockdown restrictions imposed nationwide from March 25. 

The ease in lockdown was supposed to boost the ailing economy by allowing manufacturing firms to resume operations, albeit with strict precautionary measures in place to ensure employees’ safety. 

The company was hopeful of resuming manufacturing at the earliest at a restricted level with skeletal strength of workers.

Nokia is not the first manufacturer to resume operations and shut it in a short span of time due to Covid-19 cases. Recently, Oppo, the Chinese smartphone company, had to shut down its Greater Noida factory after six factory workers tested positive for Covid-19.

The company had a post-lockdown employee strength of 3000 in its manufacturing plant and working were in rotational shifts and taking precautions against Covid-19. Despite precautions, the company which has a 10,000-strong workforce in India had shut down no sooner than it had reopened its manufacturing.

It might offer some relief to citizens that although the coronavirus infections tally for India as on Tuesday was at 1,45,380, the total number of deaths was 4,167, a small number considering the country’s population.

Via Economic Times

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