Tirupati, 21 April 2020: Post the notifications issued by the Government of India and the Government of Andhra Pradesh, effective 20th April 2020, Amara Raja Group partially commenced its manufacturing operations. The Group has chalked out an action plan for running its partial operations with a detailed standard operating procedure (SOP) ensuring Social distancing, Hygiene and People safety.
The standard operating procedure (SOP) formulated by the Amara Raja Group emphasises on five critical aspects: Social distancing, Screening & Monitoring, Disinfection & Sanitization, Containment plan & Prevention and Awareness.
Looking forward to a new normal, the released SOP emphasizes on a new way of life that calls for radical behavioural changes on all aspects, including usage of transport, cafeteria, amenities, common areas, and inside the plant, offices and field locations.
Sharing details about partial recommencement of operations, Amara Raja Group Vice Chairman, Jay Galla said, “Post the notification issued by the govt. allowing partial operation, our teams have collaborated and put together a robust system in place to commence our operations and at the same time safeguarding the health and well-being of our employees. Our SOP (Standard Operating procedures) details out the New Way of Life aspects like attitudes and behaviour at workplace in the way we work, the way we use facilities, the guidelines we need to follow right from starting from home to work and back. Ever since the start of this crisis, we have been implementing varied initiatives to combat the contagion at the institutional, local, state and national level to deal with the pandemic.”
All businesses in the Amara Raja Group are getting into partial operations in a phased manner adhering to all the necessary health and safety guidelines issued by the Central and State Governments and ensuring complete compliance of the SOPs.
Much before COVID 19 was declared a pandemic, the Amara Raja Group constituted a Group Corporate Taskforce for the prevention of COVID-19. The Taskforce includes senior leadership and medical professionals who are aimed to evaluate the entire operating environment, to assess the operating guidelines released by Central/State Governments, to formulate and execute the action plan devised against the Pandemic and to come up with more sustainable strategies for the resumption of work post COVID-19.
Reconstituting the existing Group Corporate Taskforce for prevention of COVID-19, the group further strengthened its working by adding four core taskforce teams as follows – ‘Health Safety and People’, ‘Business Continuity’, ‘CSR’, and ‘COVID-19 Impact & Data Analysis’. These taskforce teams comprising leaders across the group are working collaboratively in combating the crisis.
The GROCOM team, or the Growth committee of the Group which comprises of the Chairman, Vice-Chairman and the Senior Leadership, alongside are having daily video meetings to discuss the various aspects of People and business.
The SOP document advises all the people to install and use the GOI launched ‘Arogya Setu App’. Additionally, the Group has enabled the digital people platform called ‘WE@AR’ to communicate and engage with all its 16000 + employees. As soon as the lock down was announced, the people platform has been enabled with geo-tagging, which further helps the group to know the location of each of its people and offer them support in case of any urgency. The group is also working towards developing a customized self-screening tool which will help employees understand their health readiness to work.
Amara Raja Group has also set up shelter camps for the migrant workers on their Karakambadi, Petamitta, ARGC and Digivamagam facility centers. They are regularly monitoring the health of over 800 migrant workers and their families while providing them with daily essentials. Amara Raja earlier announced several measures for the communities at large including that of 6 Crores donation to the Chief Ministers Relief Fund of which 5 Crores to AP CM Relief Fund and 1 Crore to Telangana CM Relief fund. This included a one day salary contribution from all employees in the Group.
Amara Raja is amongst India’s leading business conglomerates with interests spanning verticals from the production of lead acid batteries (AMARON brand), power conversion products, sheet metal products, precision components, electronic manufacturing services, Infrastructure Development, industrial services to food processing. Amara Raja Group of companies with their flagship company Amara Raja Batteries Ltd, are one of the largest manufacturers of Automotive and Industrial batteries in India. Amara Raja Group employs a workforce of over 16,000 people.