Despite the challenges of recent months, the outbreak of COVID-19 has had serious economic consequences all over the world. The COVID-19 crisis has affected all sectors, with varying degrees of severity. The pandemic has brought in a disruptive change in the way we think and behave. All of us have gone through very difficult, traumatic, and trying times for the past three months. It has changed our lifestyles, thinking, nature and views on life.
The consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic in India have been far-reaching and calamitous to poor populations. We must step up our efforts during these times. We at Cooper Corporation are committed to continuing our support for the government, with a key focus on strengthening the overall healthcare infrastructure, to save our nation from this pandemic. With the slew of social initiatives across the city to curtail the rise in the number of cases, we have significantly increased our on-the-ground activities to bring relief to COVID Warriors around the region.
We are involved in the fight against the pandemic in several ways. We have initiated a drive to distribute more than 15,000 “Mask Booklets” in the Marathi language on ‘How to make a mask at home’ in association with Satara Zilla Parishad for health workers. In collaboration with the Satara Municipal council, we conducted 30 full days of sanitizing drive across all parts of Satara town, MIDC Satara, Waduj, Pusegaon & Palasi.
Another key concern area was the frontline warriors like police officers who had been affected by the coronavirus. To address the issue, we partnered with Satara Police to distribute full-body protection COVID 19 PPE kit, Infra Thermometer, Face shields and medication. The company also provided high-end ventilator support to civil hospitals through the Grant Medical Foundation, Pune, to strengthen the medical infrastructure in Satara. We also distributed essential food products to migrant workers, poor families, and daily wagers of Kodoli village and Karad town. In addition, 3000 cotton masks were distributed to workmen/community and food items were provided to Vaidik Dharma Samvardhini Sabha, Satara.
The pandemic situation accompanied by various phases of lockdown and unlocks has highlighted the need for having a continuous power supply. Be it residential societies, small clinics, standalone restaurants, standalone offices/retail stores, bungalows, farmhouses and construction sites and others require an uninterrupted power supply. To address the issue of consistent power source we introduced future-ready 5KVA compact diesel gensets. The 5 KVA compact genset -Cooper Bolt Mini incorporates the contemporary Air-cooled engine designed by Ricardo, UK with whom Cooper has a technical collaboration for designing its state-of-the-art family of engines. Also, we are planning to launch 500kVA engine genset this year. This has been designed by Ricardo, UK and comes future emission ready having the lowest cost of ownership in its class. Today, Cooper Corporation employs more than 3000 people and staff is closely monitored for their health, as their safety and well-being are of paramount importance. The COVId19 preventive measures have been implemented through a detailed procedural manual and shop-floor training. The staff have been trained to always wear safety protective gear and use the Aarogya Setu app to track their health status. Precautions like the use of mask, social distancing and hand sanitization have become habits. The most important priority is the sanitization of the vicinity and the products.
The factory has been disinfected at regular intervals with the availability of hand sanitisers at multiple locations in the facility. I have always believed that “Human life is invaluable and hence -Safety First, Quality Production Must”. Safety is of paramount importance to all the employees and involves strong commitment from management and line staff. We believe safety starts at one’s home. The coronavirus outbreak has forced us to re-evaluate how digital channels can be used to support the business through the crisis and beyond. Currently. the automation technology does provide strong multiple safety levels. Interlocked gates, biometric authorization and mechanical fail-safe safety devices in robotic production lines ensure human safety.
Industrial automation provides safety interlocking. The safety gates using PILZ type, dynamically condition monitoring emergency devices and magnetic locking arrangements, IR beam detectors, light barriers well-engineered with automation system provides strong safety features on the shop floor. Surveillance Camera monitoring plant operations from a single control station provide a means to study unsafe conditions and operations and creates safety alerts. It also provides more insights for planning engineering controls. Finally, I’d like to state that we employ over 3000 dedicated professionals, and we haven’t sacked one of them during this pandemic because I believe we are one family.
