Odisha Based Business Tycoon Provides Facilities to Staff, General Public in a Fight Against COVID

BHUBANESWAR:
Odisha’s first generation business tycoon Mahimananda Mishra, more popularly known as Mahima Mishra, has turned a Good Samaritan for thousands of people, including his employees and common citizens, during the current COVID-19 crisis by extending essential supports ranging from healthcare services to education requirements of children.

A philanthropist to the core, Mishra, the Managing Director (MD) and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Orissa Stevedores Limited (OSL) who has assiduously an enviable business empire, never delayed to stood by his employees as well as the poor and underprivileged people as the country switched to lockdown and shutdown modes in March-April last year. He ensured that his livelihoods of thousands of employees as well as workers in port cities of Paradip, Gopalpur and other operational areas were not disturbed.

“During this pandemic period, the OSL group has successfully ensured that all our employees were taken care of as before. Besides, the common people in our projects areas in Paradip in Jagatsinghpur and Gopalpur in Ganjam districts got maximum possible healthcare as well as nutritional supports,” says Mishra.

The OSL group provided the organised workers and the employees thousands of PPE kits, multivitamin supplements, immunity-boosting pills, distribution of foods and refreshments during the nightmarish lockdowns and shutdowns.

Mishra has collaborated with private healthcare service providers to ensure that the pandemic-affected employees and their family members avail the requisite medical attention free of cost under the proper monitoring of doctors and nurses.

An avid philanthropist, Mishra was instrumental in restoring the 1999 Super Cyclone battered Paradeep Port that has emerged as one of the largest cargo handlers in India.

“Ever since the pandemic set in, Mahima Mishra has stood by thousands of workers engaged here in the port town of Paradip. He has provided us clothes, food, temporary electricity and water. Besides, he has taken care of education of our children. Life would have taken a different course without him,” says Babu Kumar Sahu, an informal industrial worker in Paradip.

Contributing to the Union Government and Odisha Government’s cleanliness and healthcare drives, the OSL Group has been supporting the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan and organizing blood donation camps to minimize the impact of COVID-19.

The OSL group has undertaken necessary precautions and strict observance of the COVID-19 guidelines in the office premises. In case an employee tests positive after being infected with the highly contagious Coronavirus, all the co-workers mandatorily undergo the prescribed RT-PCR test and are compensated by the organization.

The OSL group handles 35 million tonnes of cargo in various sectors.

The OSL employees have neither been divested of their jobs nor have suffered any salary cuts unlike the lots of organizations during the lockdown.