Over 80 Namma Metro workers test positive for Covid-19

In a big blow to the efforts to expedite metro construction work amid pandemic, more than 80 labourers working on the Gottigere-Nagavara metro line (Reach 6) of Namma Metro Phase 2 have tested positive for Covid-19.

Sources said the outbreak was discovered after more than 200 labouers in a labour camp (location withheld) were subjected to the Covid-19 test by the contractor Larsen and Toubro (L&T).

Bangalore Metro Rail Corporation Limited (BMRCL) has awarded the contract for constructing package 2 and 3 of the Gottigere-Nagavara (Reach 6) line to L&T. The outbreak, the source said, was discovered in the camp of labourers who work on the 2.88-km stretch of Package 3 (Shivajinagar-Tannery Road).

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To a question, BMRCL Chief Public Relations Officer B L Yashwanth Chavan confirmed the development and said the test was conducted after one of the employees who came from outside Karnataka tested positive for Covid-19.

"The contractor took a precautionary measure to test all the employees in the camp. As of now, all of them are asymptomatic and have been shifted to Covid Care Centres," he said .

Chavan said that besides shifting the Covid positive patients, an arrangement has been made to isolate the remaining employees in the camp at various places. "All the guidelines in the standard operating procedure have been followed at the work site as well as the labour camp. We have been told that the employee who first tested positive is a new joinee," he said.

Asked whether the labourers in treatment and those in isolation will be given their salary, the spokesperson said the "rules laid down by the government will be followed".

To another question, he said the work on the 2.75-km Package 2 (Vellara Junction-Shivajinagar) will remain unaffected but the work on the package 3 is expected to be hit for the next one month.