At 8 pm on March 23, PM Narendra Modi in an address to the nation announced that from 0000 hours March 24, 2020 India shall go on a Covid-19 lockdown. Considering the severity of Covid-19 pandemic, I feel this was a bold as well as an important decision taken by Modi.
On consulting a few experts, I am convinced with the logic that if the chain of contamination could be broken, probability of mitigating the devastating effect of Covid-19 pandemic stands better.
On March 24, over the phone, a few of my constituents from Dhenkanal district of Odisha connected with my office, with a situation of theirs. I was told that even though everybody in India had been asked by PM Modi to stay at home, Tata Steel BSL Dhenkanal plant workers were being forced by their management to come to work. To the same, my office connected with Tata Group officials; and to my surprise, I learnt that the company had already been given permission by Ministry of Steel, Government of India to work as usual and that Covid-19 India lockdown did not imply to them.
This particular steel plant, am told, has thousands of people working in it. Which means chances of Covid-19 contamination is exposed to those thousands of workers, their families, their friends as well as their neighbours. Considering this to be a potential Covid-19 time bomb, I asked my office to connect me with decision makers as well as with enforcers of Odisha. That is when it's truly learnt that Covid-19 India lockdown exemption to the steel industry of India (not just to the Tata Group) had been given as per Essential Services Maintenance Act which had been passed by the Parliament in year 1981. As per Section 2(1)(a)(xii) of this Act (production, supply and distribution of steel as well as its input materials) shall be considered as ‘essential goods’.
How I wish for the Parliamentarians in 1981 to have had a fore vision that sometime during the end of year 2019, the world might face a pandemic such as the Covid-19. Am totally confused, it shall be nice if anyone of you could explain. Will any living organism cease to exist if steel isn’t produced during these testing times of Covid-19 lockdown? Are the lives of our steelworkers any less valuable than any of us who have been staying at home during this lockdown to save our life as well as the life of others?
This is a matter of concern for all the workers of the steel industry in India and not just of Tata Steel BSL workers. The otherwise very benevolent Ratan Tata is probably the eldest and arguably the most respected steel industry captain. History shall not be kind to him if he ‘does not stand up’ for Covid-19 safety of his own workers if not for all the workers of the steel industry in India.
‘Men of steel’ do not get Covid-19 or what?
(The writer is a sociopolitical leader and the Chairman of Smt. Nandini Satpathy Memorial Trust (SNSMT). He can be found on Facebook and Twitter @SuparnoSatpathy)