Bharuch industrial units in Covid grip

Surat/Bharuch: The rise in number of Covid-19 cases among employees has become a serious cause of concern for industries located in and around Bharuch.
Around eight employees of leading pharmaceutical company Lupin Laboratories, which has a unit in Ankleshwar, also tested positive on Tuesday.
Pravindan Gadhvi, site head, Lupin Laboratories, said, “When we got to know that one of our employees was in touch with a neighbour who had tested positive, we asked him to get a Covid test which confirmed he was infected. Last week, we conducted the test of all employees working in the intermediate plant and around eight tested positive while reports of others are awaited. We have closed operation of the intermediate plant and completely sanitized it.”
On Monday evening, executive director of JB Pharmaceuticals, Kamlesh Udani, tested positive and he is under treatment at Bhailal Amin Hospital in Vadodara. Udani’s family trust runs the Jayaben Modi Hospital which has been designated for Covid now.
Last Friday, he had met deputy chief minister Nitin Patel and requested him to start ESIC hospital for COVID patients as Jayaben Modi Hospital can accommodate limited number of patients.
In his message to the well wishers said, " Let us pray for all who are suffering from corona, sab ka mangal ho (praying for everyone’s well-being)."
Last week, Himanshu Modi, an assistant manager (human resources) at RPG Life Sciences died last week and the pharma company has stopped operations of one plant. State-run Gujarat Narmada Valley Fertilizers Company (GNFC) also has four employees infected with the virus.
A few days back, positive cases were also reported in ONGC Petro Additions Limited (OPAL) plant at Dahej and other units.
On Tuesday alone, Bharuch recorded 32 cases, the highest in a single day since the outbreak of pandemic.