Lockdown restrictions to continue till further order in TN
Chennai, April 19 (IANS) Tamil Nadu government on Sunday said till Chief Minister K. Palaniswami takes a decision on the industries and others that can restart operations, the existing lockdown restrictions would continue in the state.
In a statement issued, the government said the expert committee that has set up to recommend the industries/business establishments that can restart operations will be meeting on Sunday and give its report to Chief Minister on Monday.
The Chief Minister will take a decision based on the expert committee report. Till such time, the existing lockdown restrictions would continue, the statement said.
Meanwhile industry officials told IANS that they are ready to restart their operations subject to government conditions.
India’s second largest car maker Hyundai Motor India Ltd (HMIL) is ready to restart its production operations at its plants and is waiting for the state government’s decision, said a senior official.
“The HMIL qualifies the guidelines issued by the central government for restart of production operations like the plant should be in rural area or inside an industrial estate and others,” B.C. Datta, Vice President, Corporate Affairs told IANS.
Datta said the issue is to bring people to the plant as some may be living in the coronavirus containment zone. We have the Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) for social distancing, sanitisation and other hygiene aspects.
Similarly in the financial services sector, housing and non-banking finance companies (NBFCs) are now chalking out ‘re-entry’ strategies for their staff into their branches with the central government allowing them to operate.
The industry had earlier asked the government to allow them to operate so that the loan moratorium for the borrowers could be worked out.
On Thursday, the central government permitted NBFCs, housing and micro-finance companies to restart operations with bare minimum staff.
“We are working out the plan. There will be not more than five employees in a single office and social distancing will be maintained. There will be temperature scanners and no major customer walk-ins,” Alok Aggarwal, Managing Director, National Trust Housing Finance Limited had told IANS.
Aggarwal said only employees with own transport will be allowed to come to office and that too on a voluntary basis.
Pointing out that local government guidelines have to be followed though the directive was issued by the central government, T.T. Srinivasaraghavan, Managing Director, said that the branches outside the red zone — areas classified based on the number of people affected by coronavirus — can re-open.
“The contact with the customers will be restricted,” Srinivasaraghavan told had IANS.
–IANS
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