(THE NEWSMAN OF INDIA.COM)
New Delhi, 27th April, 2020: Steel Authority of India Limited (SAIL) continues to be at the forefront of India’s fight against COVID-19. Under the guidance of Dharmendra Pradhan, Union Minister of PNG & Steel, SAIL has contributed Rs 4 Crore to four states viz. Jharkhand, Odisha, Chhattisgarh and West Bengal in which its five integrated steel plants are located. The Company has contributed Rs 1 Crore each, amounting to Rs 4 Crore, to the CM Relief Funds of these states respectively. The steel plants located in these states are Bokaro Steel Plant in Jharkhand, Rourkela Steel Plant in Odisha, Bhilai Steel Plant in Chhatisgarh and Durgapur Steel Pant and IISCO Steel Plant in West Bengal. Anil Kumar Chaudhary, Chairman, SAIL commented, “SAIL has stepped forward and decided to contribute Rs One Crore each to the CM relief funds of the four states where we have our integrated steel plants apart from Rs 30 Crore contribution to the PM CARES fund and its employees also having contributed their one day’s salary amounting to around Rs 9 Crore to this fund, earlier”.

The Company has enhanced its medical facilities across its Plants and Units in coordination with local authorities of respective state governments in its fight against COVID-19. SAIL has spearheaded various measures to fight against the spread of Corona virus at a pan-India level including wide distribution of masks and sanitizers. It has set up around 300 isolation beds and around 600 quarantine facilities in its Plant and Unit hospitals and townships for the benefit of people of the surrounding regions. It has also mobilized other facilities for medical services such as a COVID testing laboratory at SAIL’s Ispat General Hospital at Rourkela and a dedicated COVID Care Centre at SAIL’s Bokaro General Hospital at Bokaro. The Company has handed over five ventilators to Odisha Govt. through its Rourkela Steel Plant for treatment of corona patients. It has also undertaken massive ‘anndaan’ program under Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Anna Yojana at its Plant and Unit locations including two of Company’s steel processing units (SPUs) at Kandrori in Himachal Pradesh and Jagdishpur in Uttar Pradesh.