First Covid-19 state disaster response meeting held in Gujarat

In these challenging times, the Gujarat State Disaster Response platform had its first-ever virtual meeting to discuss the measures being taken for the COVID-19 pandemic, on March 30, 2020. Under the aegis of Tata Chemicals (TCL), the lead Tata company for the state, the meeting was attended by participants from eight Tata companies and the Tata Trusts to discuss the actions being taken to address the current needs of communities and to plan for future actions in the state.

Shohab Rais, TCL, convener of the platform, welcomed the members and spoke about TCL’s initiatives being undertaken during the COVID-19 pandemic. Some of the actions taken by the company are:

• Awareness sessions: Awareness sessions have been undertaken with TCL employees, residents of the township and neighbouring communities from the second week of March 2020. TCL has reached out to 43 villages through small video clips and IES posters.
• Preparing medical facilities: Measures have been taken at the TCL hospital that caters to both the residents of the township and neighbouring communities. A 24/7 flu screening centre with free medicines and counselling services, a temporary waiting area, temperature measurement and a separate OPD for general patients while maintaining social distancing have been set up.
• Isolation and quarantine wards: Two wards with two beds and attached bathrooms have been demarcated as isolation wards since March 17. In addition, quarantine facilities with a capacity of 100 beds are being developed at two school locations.
• Distribution of relief items: Cooked food was distributed to 150 underprivileged people on March 25, post which, keeping in mind safety concerns of gatherings, 300 family food kits consisting of dry ration that would last for a period of 7-10 days, under the guidance of the district administration.
• Sanitisation: TCL is also providing sodium hypochlorite to various cities and villages.

Mr Rais also stressed upon the need for more collaboration among companies in the future.

Shrirang Dhavale, Tata Sustainability Group, then took the participants through the various interventions undertaken by Tata companies in other geographies – from distribution of food, PPE and other material required by hospitals. He suggested that a call could be arranged among the various Tata hospital in-charges to discuss the preparatory measures being undertaken. He also mentioned the work being carried out by the Tata group disaster response procurement cadre, who have been procuring materials for hospitals which are becoming increasing difficult to source.

Other Tata companies also shared their contributions.

Kishan Gopal from TCS shared their action plan that included work around awareness generation with the government and on a potential tele-medicine platform. Pradeep Ghosal from CGPL discussed the work being carried out in the communities surrounding their plant. He requested that information and guidelines be shared among the companies to implement them across their localities. Amitanshu Chaudhary from the Tata Trusts discussed their largescale awareness drive being prepared and training programmes for frontline workers, along with IEC material that is being developed. He also suggested that companies be on a lookout to see the long-term impacts on livelihood and the resulting psychosocial impacts of the lockdown.

Key points of action discussed in the meeting were to arrange for a call among different Tata hospitals to gather and implement learnings of preparing hospitals for the pandemic. It was suggested that an SOP be developed for the distribution of food and dry ration to vulnerable families – given the added precautions of social distancing. It was also decided that companies share the requests coming from the government that are beyond the individuals’ capacity to cater to.

Alka Talwar, TCL, gave a vote of thanks to all participants and assured that as lead company, TCL with the support of other Tata companies would continue to support Tata’s disaster response efforts whenever the need arises.