Exide Industries Ltd

For more than 70 years, Exide Industries Ltd has lived up to its core value of "valuing our customers, employees, vendors & share-holders." This enduring theme guided us, as we presently face the difficult challenge of responding to Corona virus (COVID-19).

Given the outbreak of COVID-19 and National Lock down, it was important for us to ensure the overall safety & well-being of every employee and our extended family of each workmen, vendor, supplier, customer etc. In line with the directives issued by central govt, state govt. and local authorities, all our factories, offices, ware-houses are under complete lock-down and we have introduced "Work from Home" model for all our employees. Only certain emergency activities are selectively operated in a minimalistic and temporary mode. All our employees are working collaboratively to cope up with the new working format and the Top Management is in continuous communication with them.

Since the outbreak of COVID 19, we are not only fulfilling our commitment to take care of our Exide family, but going one step forward in taking care of the needs to the society and the community as a whole. Some of the initiatives undertaken by us since last one month are mentioned below:

1.   Epic level Task Force:  We have established a senior level Corona virus Response Taskforce headed by our MD & CEO which is reviewing the situation on a daily basis, analysing government notifications, monitoring all activities and giving decisions through various SPOCs nationally in real-time speed.

2.   Funding support to State Govt / Local authorities:  As part of our CSR Initiative, we are donating funds to the West Bengal State Emergency Funds towards COVID 19 to the tune of Rs. 33 lacs. Through another initiative, we have provided Rs. 20 lacs to local authorities in the state of Tamil Nadu for procuring emergency medical equipment to counter the threat of COVID 19.

3.   Fulfilling all our commitments towards workmen:  In order to reduce the hardship, we are fulfilling our commitment towards all our workmen, whether regular or contractual. In fact, we have gone one step ahead and cleared all their dues including their salaries for the month of March, before the month end.

4.   Seamless communication to all Stakeholders:  We are in regular touch with all our stakeholders, whether employees, vendors, suppliers, etc. We are disseminating information to them regarding measures to be taken at their end so as to reduce their anxiety & discomfort level in this difficult period. Our IT team is providing an excellent platform to maximise our reach through various layers of telepresence, calls, skypes, chat groups.

5.   Meeting the Societal / Community needs:  We are also equally concerned of the safety of our customers and the community within which we operate and similar efforts are being taken to remain in touch with many of them.

a.  Many of our factories are currently operating their canteens to provide food to migrant workers in the region.
b.  We are also funding for masks and sanitisers to local police and civic body wherever they have approached us.

6.   Training / Skill development:  We are using this captive time of employees for skill-development and various technical and developmental programmes are getting conducted online by our in-house leadership teams.