PARADIP: THE Paradip Municipality has lodged an FIR against Larsen & Toubro (L&T) Ltd for engaging contract workers from other states in violation of Covid-19 regulations. Executive officer (EO) of Paradip Municipality Duryodhan Patel filed the complaint at Paradip Model police station on direction of the district administration. The contract workers were re-engaged in construction work by L&T without the k n o w l e d g e o f t h e administration. Recently, five Covid-19 positive cases including two crew members of vessels berthed in the port and an employee of L&T were detected in Paradip.
While the L&T office was sealed for five day, 29 of its employees were kept in home isolation under containment measures. Sources said hundreds of workers of West Bengal, Bihar, Jharkhand and other states, who had gone back to their native places during lockdown, have returned to Paradip to join duty at various construction agencies. These workers have settled in different colonies and slums of the port town without informing the administration, thereby creating panic among locals. Apprehending spread of coronavirus, activists of Paradip Yuvak Sangh on Friday had staged protest when 35 contract workers of Jharkhand were being taken to Atharbanki hospital for health check-up by L&T. This apart, women of Bagadia panchayat opposed the presence of L&T workers in Nuasahi village.
They alleged that swab samples of the workers were not collected for tests. Besides, the workers were not put in isolation and came in contact wi th locals including shopkeepers. Last week, nearly 120 contract workers from Uttar Pradesh and Bihar came in five buses and were taken to Abhaychandpur village. Since they were neither medically examined nor quarantined, locals restricted their entry to the village apprehending the spread of coronavirus. In view of the illegal inflow of contract workers to Paradip, Jagatsinghpur Collector Sangram Keshari Mohapatra has directed the EO to seal the companies violating Covid-19 regulations.