Taking forward the commitment to supply healthy tea by a healthy workforce and grower members, the Indcoserve, India’s largest tea co-operative federation head-quartered in Coonoor, has launched a massive project to vaccinate all eligible employees and tea small growers against the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic.
At the beginning of this year, Indcoserve’s Chief Executive Officer Supriya Sahu who is also Principal Secretary to Tamil Nadu Government, spread out a message, “We herald the New Year with a positive note to be free from the fears and travails of the pandemic.”
Now, to allay the fear in the minds of the employees and the tea small grower members, she has organised special camps in Indco factories to vaccinate the eligible stakeholders.
“Of the 1,054 employees in the 16 Indco tea factories, 632 are aged above 45 years of whom, 350 have already got vaccinated. Presently, Government has ordered vaccination only for those aged above 45 years,” Supriya Sahu said after monitoring the camp along with The Nilgiris District Collector Innocent Divya at the Indco factory in Kattabettu village near Coonoor.
“We have urged all eligible among our over 30,000 tea small grower members in various villages across The Nilgiris district also to get vaccinated,” she said.
She said that all Indco factories ensure adherence to the Standard Operating Practices prescribed by the Tamil Nadu Government including wearing of face masks, social distancing, using sanitizers and sticking to the allowed working hours.
The Nilgiris District Collector Innocent Divya said that similar camps would be conducted in all the Indco tea factories to help all eligible stakeholders get vaccinated.
The 16 Indco tea factories manufacture about 13 million kg of different grades of teas annually. Indcoserve, set up by the Government of Tamil Nadu in 1964, is the apex body of the Indco tea factories catering to the processing requirement of the over 30,000 tea small farmers.