According to local media reports, India-headquartered steelmaker Tata Steel has received approval from the Jharkhand government to extend its Jamshedpur employees’ eight-hour shift to 12 hours, limiting the number of workers in the facilities in order to prevent the spread of the coronavirus pandemic.
At first, the company's sinter plant and new bar mill department will start to carry out the pilot project. 12-hour shifts will be implemented in other departments as well, if it will be useful.
During the lockdown, several other states in the country had allowed to extend working hours for the same reason and Odisha where the company has two integrated steel plants was one of them. The company’s Kalinganagar and Angul plants, where Tata Steel had extended working hours after the government’s approval, are now mostly back to the eight-hour shift.