CEAT Kelani Vice President Sales & Marketing Madhushanka Ranatunga (left) makes a symbolic presentation to Senior Deputy Inspector General of Police Deshabandu Tennakoon in the presence of CEAT Kelani Managing Director Ravi Dadlani

CEAT Kelani Holdings has reiterated its support to the battle against the spread of COVID-19 with a donation of 1,000 boxes of essential protective materials to the Sri Lanka Police and tyre dealers island wide.

Each box contains 100 disposable gloves, five reusable masks, and five bottles of hand sanitiser, all custom produced for CEAT and bearing the company’s name. The company presented 450 boxes intended for the use of police personnel to Senior Deputy Inspector General of Police Deshabandu Tennakoon recently. The balance 550 boxes are being distributed to tyre dealers for the use of members of staff that interact with customers.

Additionally, CEAT Kelani has provided tyre dealers with specially-designed floor stickers to aid organised social distancing at dealer outlets.

“The safety precautions necessitated by the global pandemic have to be strictly observed for many more months if the country is to effectively manage the situation,” CEAT Kelani Managing Director Mr Ravi Dadlani said. “We believe organisations must do everything in their power to facilitate this. Besides implementing all the mandated protocols in our own operations, we feel duty bound to support those at the frontlines, especially the police and our dealers to protect themselves and those they come into contact with.”

Earlier this year CEAT Kelani Holdings made a series of donations of equipment and consumables exceeding Rs 10 million in value to key state institutions at the forefront of the effort to combat COVID-19, the National Institute of Infectious Diseases, Ministry of Health, Sri Jayewardenepura General Hospital and its Postgraduate Medical Training Centre, Lady Ridgeway Hospital for Children, the Badulla General Hospital and the Sri Lanka Police.

In a separate donation, CEAT Kelani contributed Rs 2 million towards the cost of construction of a new 106-bed Army Hospital at Pallakele in Kandy.

Besides these donations, the company conceptualised and implemented a multi-pronged effort to improve safety and hygiene facilities for commuters as well as bus crews, to support lorry crews with personal safety kits and the sanitisation of lorries serving key market locations, and to help sustain workers at tyre dealerships around the country. Among the projects undertaken was the fitting of hand sanitiser units on 350 buses operating in the Colombo District for the use of passengers as they board. CEAT also undertook to supply hand sanitiser liquid for these buses for three months and to supply three months’ requirement of personal safety kits for bus drivers and conductors. Each kit comprised of six face masks, six pairs of gloves and personal hand sanitiser units.

CEAT Kelani Holdings is considered one of the most successful India – Sri Lanka joint ventures in the manufacturing sector. The joint venture’s cumulative investment in Sri Lanka to date totals Rs 8 billion, inclusive of Rs 3 billion committed in January 2018 for expansion of volumes, technology upgrades and new product development. The company’s manufacturing operations in Sri Lanka encompass pneumatic tyres in the radial (passenger cars, vans and SUVs), commercial (Bias-ply and radial), motorcycle, three-wheeler and agricultural vehicle segments.