Vedanta Aluminium sensitizes communities on water management on World Water Day
24th March 2022
Jharsuguda, Odisha; 24th March 2022: Vedanta Aluminium, India’s largest producer of aluminium and value-added products, celebrated World Water Day 2022 at and around its aluminium operations in Jharsuguda, Odisha. The company conducted various interactive sessions and awareness drives on the theme of ‘Groundwater: making the invisible visible’, reaching out to over a hundred people including elected representatives, members of various self-help groups, farmers, and youth from the local communities.
Speaking on the company’s water sustainability efforts, Mr. Sunil Gupta, CEO, Vedanta Ltd., Jharsuguda said, “At Vedanta, water management is integrated into the decision-making processes for all our projects, thus ensuring that our business growth is synonymous with environmental sustainability. Our aluminium operations are guided by a robust water management policy that aims to increase water reutilization, reduce freshwater consumption and ensure zero liquid discharge. Our efforts are aimed at conserving water at our operations, ensuring a positive ecological footprint, and helping farmers and local communities harvest and access water for irrigation and household usage.”
Appreciating Vedanta’s contribution in aiding groundwater management in the community, Ms. Puspanjali Kalo, Sarpanch – Katikela Gram Panchayat, said, “Vedanta’s welfare initiatives in water conservation and management have helped in saving and replenishing groundwater in our villages, benefitting multiple households. Their water infrastructure projects have facilitated agricultural activities across villages by promoting best practices in irrigation, thereby helping various farmers in the region.”
In the current fiscal, Vedanta Jharsuguda has recycled nearly 10 lakh litres of water at its operations. In addition, the company has undertaken robust measures in the community to optimize water consumption and increase the share of recycled and reused water through various initiatives, such as:
- Supporting neighbouring communities to capture rainwater and recharge ground water by developing rainwater harvesting systems.
- Building several water-related community infrastructures like tube wells, bore wells, ponds, percolation tanks, etc. to help communities access water for household and irrigation purposes.
- Cleaning and revamp of village ponds and borewells to capture rainwater, thus benefiting thousands of people and livestock.
- Aiding district administration in supplying drinking water to local communities during water-scarce summer months.
- Helping farmers in the community adopt drip-irrigation, treadle pump, solar powered water pumps, rainwater harvesting structures like percolation tanks, etc. to boost irrigation potential and reduce dependency on monsoons.
- Training farmers to grow climate-resilient crops for improving yield, irrespective of climactic conditions.
Vedanta is India’s largest producer of the green metal, aluminium, operating a world-class 1.6 MTPA aluminium smelter and 3615 MW thermal power generation facility in Jharsuguda, Odisha. The only Indian smelter in the global ‘1 Million Tonne’ production and export club, Vedanta Jharsuguda is a leader in value-added aluminium products that find critical applications across core industries. With its state-of-the-art facilities, unparalleled engineering prowess, R&D and innovation abilities, Vedanta Jharsuguda is working towards a sustainable and greener future for all by spurring emerging applications of aluminium, the ‘Metal of the Future’.
About Vedanta Limited:
Vedanta Limited, a subsidiary of Vedanta Resources Limited, is one of the world’s leading Oil & Gas and Metals company with significant operations in Oil & Gas, Zinc, Lead, Silver, Copper, Iron Ore, Steel, and Aluminium & Power across India, South Africa and Namibia. For two decades, Vedanta has been contributing significantly to nation building. Governance and sustainable development are at the core of Vedanta's strategy, with a strong focus on health, safety, and environment. Vedanta has put in place a comprehensive framework to be the ESG leader in the natural resources sector. Vedanta is committed to reducing carbon emissions to zero by 2050 or sooner and has pledged $5 billion over the next 10 years to accelerate the transition to net zero operations. Giving back is in the DNA of Vedanta, which is focused on enhancing the lives of local communities. The company’s flagship social impact program, Nand Ghars, have been set up as model anganwadis focused on eradicating child malnutrition, providing education, healthcare, and empowering women with skill development. Under the aegis of the Anil Agarwal Foundation, the umbrella entity for Vedanta’s social initiatives, the Vedanta group has pledged Rs 5000 crore over the next five years on social impact programmes with a thrust on nutrition, women & child development, healthcare, animal welfare, and grass-root level sports. Vedanta and the group companies have been featured in Dow Jones Sustainability Index, and was conferred Frost & Sullivan Sustainability Awards 2020, Golden Peacock Award for excellence in Corporate Governance 2022 and certified as a Great Place to Work 2022. Vedanta Limited is listed on the Bombay Stock Exchange and the National Stock Exchange.
For more information, please visit www.vedantalimited.com
About Vedanta Aluminium Business:
Vedanta Aluminium, a business of Vedanta Limited, is India’s largest producer of aluminium, manufacturing more than half of India’s aluminium i.e., 2.37 million tonnes in FY24. It is a leader in value-added aluminium products that find critical applications in core industries. Vedanta Aluminium ranks 1st in the S&P Global Corporate Sustainability Assessment 2023 world rankings for the aluminium industry, a reflection of its leading sustainable development practices. With its world-class aluminium smelters, alumina refinery and power plants in India, the company fulfils its mission of spurring emerging applications of aluminium as the ‘Metal of the Future’ for a greener tomorrow.
For more information, please log on to www.vedantaaluminium.com
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Disclaimer:
This press release contains “forward-looking statements” – that is, statements related to future, not past, events. In this context, forward-looking statements often address our expected future business and financial performance, and often contain words such as “expects,” “anticipates,” “intends,” “plans,” “believes,” “seeks,” “should” or “will.” Forward-looking statements by their nature address matters that are, to different degrees, uncertain. For us, uncertainties arise from the behaviour of financial and metals markets including the London Metal Exchange, fluctuations in interest and or exchange rates and metal prices; from future integration of acquired businesses; and from numerous other matters of national, regional, and global scale, including those of a political, economic, business, competitive or regulatory nature. These uncertainties may cause our actual future results to be materially different than those expressed in our forward-looking statements. We do not undertake to update our forward-looking statements.
