Latest News | Business Briefs COVID: Barclays Extends Assistance to Staffers in India

Mumbai, May 22 (PTI) British lender Barclays on Saturday announced a slew of measures to help its 20,000 employees in India to deal with COVID-19-related challenges.

The bank will enhance insurance cover and pay for uncovered items like the cost of PPE kits, vaccinate employees and their families and has also made a provision to give a month's salary as advance for junior staffers, as per a statement.

"Given the current pandemic situation in India, we hope that these new measures will lessen the burden on our colleagues and provide further assistance towards taking care of themselves and their families,” Jaideep Khanna, head of Barclays Asia Pacific, said.

********** Industrialist Bhaskarrao Sandu passes away *

Industrialist Bhaskarrao Govind Sandu, who served as the chairman of Sandu Pharmaceuticals, passed away on Friday due to old age. He was 84.

He chaired the ayurvedic pharma company for 20 years, which witnessed milestones like multi-fold growth, listing on the bourses and also tapping the export markets, a statement said.

********* SpiceHealth launches mobile COVID testing lab in Aurangabad *

Diagnostics player SpiceHealth on Saturday announced the launch of a mobile testing laboratory to check COVID-19 infection in Maharashtra's Aurangabad city.

The laboratory will be conducting real-time polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) tests in the city, where the overall caseload has surged past 1.38 lakh, as per a release.

************ COVID: Indiabulls Housing Fin to give financial assistance to families of deceased employees *

Mortgage financier Indiabulls Housing Finance on Saturday said it will provide financial assistance to families of employees in the event of their demise due to COVID-19.

"In the unfortunate event of the demise of any of our employees to COVID, we will continue to pay the monthly salary of our employee to their family for two years," the company's Vice Chairman, Managing Director and CEO Gagan Banga said in an email sent to employees.

It will also cover the education costs of the children of these employees till they graduate from any Indian college, he said.

The company has been organising mental health programmes, providing salary in advance and additional leaves to support its employees and their families amid the pandemic.

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)