The Business Bytes
TBB BUREAU
JHARSUGUDA, MAR 30, 2023
In commemoration of International Women’s Day 2023, Vedanta Aluminium organised a month-long celebration with a plethora of events for its women employees and members of the local communities, themed on ‘Embrace Equity’.
Vedanta Aluminium has always strived to enhance gender diversity within the company by basing its growth roadmap on the fundamental pillars of equitable workplace practices.
With Industry 4.0 and the global energy transition, there are exciting opportunities for professionals in the manufacturing industry. The industry offers extensive career options with advanced technologies, digital solutions, automation, and smart manufacturing. Vedanta Aluminium has deployed industry-leading people practices, nurturing one of the highest gender diversity percentages in its workforce – a scenario that is extremely unusual for the metals, mining & heavy engineering industry, where gender diversity has globally been in the low single digits. Owing to that, women professionals today are thriving in traditionally male-dominated fields such as core operations and technical roles across the business, ranging from metal production, logistics, civil work and railway infrastructure to finance, security, and commodities procurement.
The activities conducted as part of the month-long celebrations included Augmented Reality-led Campaign called ‘Vedanta Sorting Hard-Hat’, on Instagram to attract more women professionals to the manufacturing industry; and CXOs for the Day where 31 high-potential women employees were identified and made CXOs for two days, with the current CXOs personally anchoring and mentoring them through the roles, responsibilities and decision-making processes.
Vedanta Aluminium set the ball rolling on transgender hiring at its Jharsuguda unit by recruiting 7 transgender employees into its formidable security team. Responsible for ensuring strict round-the-clock security of one of the world’s largest aluminium smelters and its workforce, they are amongst the 20 transgender employees currently employed with the company.
Members of Subhalaxmi Co-operative, one of India’s largest rural women’s co-operatives supported by Vedanta Aluminium, were felicitated by Jharsuguda Collector Saroj Kumar Samal during the month-long programme. The programme also included an awareness session on Women’s Rights and Social Justice.
The company also felicitated two women achievers from the state of Odisha, Kendra Sangeet Natak Akademi Award-winning Odia singer Susmita Das and former captain of India Women’s National Field Hockey Team Subhadra Pradhan. Both women interacted with the company’s women employees and motivated them to pursue their goals relentlessly.
Reiterating Vedanta’s commitment towards gender equality, Vedanta Ltd., Jharsuguda CEO Sunil Gupta said, “At Vedanta Aluminium, diversity and inclusion form the twin pillars of belief and culture in our approach to gender equality. While the average global gender diversity is within the low single digits in metals, mining and heavy engineering industries, we have a healthy gender diversity percentage owing to our industry-leading people practices. We strive to extend this culture of access to equal opportunities to the local communities as well. Through institutions like Subhalaxmi Co-operative, our marquee project in sustainable livelihood and women empowerment, we are bringing together financial literacy, skill development, enterprise development, and more to over 4100 women in rural India, making them participants in socio-economic development.”
Lauding the members of Subhalaxmi Co-operative for their achievements, Jharsuguda Collector Saroj Kumar Samal said, “Vedanta Aluminium’s efforts towards enabling the women in their operations and in the community to self-empower is highly appreciable. It is heartening to see the accomplishments of so many women from our community.”
The Subhalaxmi Co-operative is a community-led institution to enable women from local communities through skills training, financial literacy, and livelihood generation opportunities.It focuses onhelping women create enterprises, establish raw material and market linkages and promote their products, while guiding them towards accessing social security services and institutional credit resources. Their efforts help promote social and financial inclusion, livelihood generation, and enterprise promotion within their communities.
Vedanta Aluminium, a business of Vedanta Limited, is India’s largest producer of aluminium, manufacturing more than half of India’s aluminium i.e., 2.27 million tonnes in FY22. It is a leader in value-added aluminium products that find critical applications in core industries. Vedanta Aluminium ranks 2nd in the Dow Jones Sustainability Index (DJSI) 2022 world rankings for aluminium industry, a reflection of its 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.
