Coronavirus scare at Coal India's top entity; 50 employees quarantined

About 50 employees of the South Eastern Coalfields Limited (SECL) in Chhattisgarh’s Korba district have been quarantined after participating in a religious event on Friday.

The employees had gathered to perform a religious event on Friday. They came under the scanner as one of the persons present in the event was tested positive for coronavirus. The person had been admitted to All India Institute of Medical Sciences in Raipur.

According to Korba district administration, all the persons belonging to a minority community had defied the health guidelines and also curfew-like lockdown imposed by the Chhattisgarh government. Of the gathering, about 50 were working with a coal mining project of SECL.

Following the development, the SECL management had issued order asking the employees not to report on duty and stay in the 28-day home quarantine from Monday. The employees were part of mining operation in the underground mine of the SECL.

SECL has a major coal mining operation in Korba district. The company is the largest coal producing entity of the Coal India Limited (CIL). It retained the top spot by contributing 25 percent to the total coal production of CIL. As against the CIL’s output of 602.14 MT in the financial year 2019-20, SECL had produced 150.545 MT.