State-run Nalco and Coal India arm Mahanadi Coalfields Ltd (MCL) will fully fund two dedicated Covid-19 350-bed Hospitals in Odisha opened on Monday. Hospitals were opened by Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik, together with the Minister of Petroleum and Natural Gas, Dharmendra Pradhan, and Coal and Mines, Pralhad Joshi, through video conferencing.
Hospitals started by the government of Odisha will be run with the help of different medical hospitals in the state.
"National Aluminum Company (Nalco) and Coal India subsidiary Mahanadi Coalfields Ltd (MCL) will fully fund two dedicated Covid-19 hospitals in Odisha," the mines ministry said in a statement.
Nalco will fund a 200-bed hospital set up in the Nabarangpur district of Odisha, while MCL will fund a 150-bed hospital set up in Talcher in the Angul district of the state.
MCL has also provided its medical college infrastructure to establish the hospital.
"The central government has already issued guidelines to allow state governments to utilise up to 30 per cent of the balance fund available with District Mineral Fund (DMF) to combat Covid-19. This will also help the mineral rich state like Odisha in fighting with the pandemic," Joshi said.
Notably, Nalco employees contributed their one-day salary of Rs 2.5 crore to the Odisha Chief Minister's Relief Fund.
MCL is already funding the dedicated 500-bed Covid-19 Hospital in Bhubaneswar.
The Coal India arm has also established a more than 50-bed insulation center in the Jharsuguda district of Odisha.
The company also commissioned the state-of-the-art Fog Cannon equipment to sanitize peripheral areas, as well as the distribution of masks and alcohol-based sanitizers among coal miners and people living in and around its operations.
