Mumbai, March 15 (IANS): Automobile major Tata Motors has asked its staff in office based roles at headquarters and regional offices including third party staff to work from home with effect from Monday as a precautionary measure against the coronavirus infection.

Tata Motors is just one among the large number of companies globally and in India to adopt the work-from-home culture in the wake of the pandemic.

In an internal communication to the company staff, Tata Motors MD and CEO Guenter Butschek said that over the past two weeks, the company has taken several steps to avoid spread of the virus.

"Employees in office-based roles, including third party staff in company HQ, sales, marketing HQ, in enabling functions in regional offices and purchase team based in Pune will work from home effective Monday, 16th March. They are expected to remain connected and participate in all official engagements remotely during working hours," he said.

The company has constituted a team to monitor and initiate actions to reduce risk to employees and has developed a three-tier response plan based on incidence of infection in cities it operates it or has manufacturing sites.

The company has suspended international travel for employees and domestic travel involving public transport is subject to approval. Like several other organisations, it has also replaced biometric attendance system with card swiping.

Further, meetings involving over 20 people have been suspended, while pregnant ladies and employees with chronic respiratory and cardiac illness have also been advised to work from home.

Butschek said with coronavirus being declared a pandemic by the World Health Organisation and the rising number of cases in India, "we need to act early and social distancing will help break the contagion and help us get ahead of the virus".

So far over 100 positive cases have been reported in India and two deaths have occurred due to the deadly virus.