In the wake of high COVID-19 infections in the state, Renault Nissan Automotive India Pvt Ltd will temporarily suspend operations at its plant in Tamil Nadu for five days, with effect from today.

“The COVID-19 situation in and around Chennai remains extremely serious. Therefore, to ensure we maintain the focus on the safety of our employees and their families and as a precaution, the decision has been taken to suspend plant operations temporarily from May 26 to May 30,” according to an internal letter shared by the company managing director and CEO Biju Balendran with employees, PTI reported.

“We will continue to closely monitor the situation in Chennai and Tamil Nadu and come back to you shortly with information on when the plant will restart operations”, he said.

Meanwhile, Hyundai Motor India Ltd (HMIL) has also temporarily suspended operations at its Chennai plant for five days starting Tuesday. “Considering the prevailing situation in Tamil Nadu, Hyundai management has decided to temporarily suspend the plant operations for a period of 5 days, starting, May 25, 2021, until May 29, 2021,” HMIL had said in a statement.

The Tamil Nadu administration had on Saturday announced extending the ongoing lockdown for another week starting May 24 with more stringent measures to prevent the spread of COVID-19 in the state. According to the health department, Tamil Nadu reported 34,285 new COVID-19 cases on Tuesday, pushing the caseload to 19,11,496 overall while 468 deaths in the last 24 hours mounted the toll to 21,340, to date.