HINDUSTAN ZINC CELEBRATES WORLD ENVIRONMENT DAY

Hindustan Zinc carried out a special plantation drive on the occasion of World Environment Day - 5th June, 2015. The drive was carried out in all its business locations spread across 5 districts – Udaipur, Chittorgarh, Bhilwara, Rajsamand and Ajmer.

In a message to all employees, Akhilesh Joshi, CEO-HZL emphasised on the importance of individuals to bring out change and also highlighted the  annual theme recommended by the United Nations Environment Programme — ‘Seven Billion Dreams. One Planet. Consume with Care’. He said “World Environment Day is the opportunity for everyone to realize the responsibility to care for the Earth and to become agents of change. Every small step taken by each one of us is a mighty step forward in terms of creating a better environment for next generation.”

Hindustan Zinc’s Chanderiya Smelting Complex, has special focus on planting the saplings of medicinal properties. In addition, poster making competition, environment quiz, photography, slogans writing competition and essay writing competitions were organised. 

Over 1.4 million saplings have been planted by the Company over the years. 

As a part of green energy initiatives the company is also one of the largest producers of wind power – 274 MW in India, which is registered under Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) of United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and is entitled for carbon credits. Hindustan Zinc produces also about 35.4 MW of power through the waste heat recovery process. Utilization of fly-ash and slag, adoption of environment friendly technology, water conservation and setting-up Sewage Treatment Plant in Udaipur are some of the many key initiatives taken by the Company towards care for the environment.

HINDUSTAN ZINC AWARDED WITH "FROST & SULLIVAN - GREEN MANUFACTURING EXCELLENCE AWARD 2015"

We are very pleased to inform that Hindustan Zinc’s Chanderiya Lead-Zinc Smelting Complex has been awarded with "Frost & Sullivan - Green Manufacturing Excellence Award 2015" in Mega Large Business. The coveted award was received by Mr. Rajesh Kundu – Location Head, Ms. Nikita Bhakta – AM (HR) and Mr. RS Rao – Executive (Process) from Hindustan Zinc’s Chanderiya Unit in a glittering event organized at Hotel Hyatt in Mumbai in May 2015.

Hindustan Zinc Chanderiya Lead-Zinc Smelter also received "Certificate of Merit for Safety Excellence", which was received by Mr. Dilip Sharma, Executive- Safety.

VEDANTA KHUSHI : THE LITTLE SPARROWS OF VEDANTA “KHUSHI”

Mail Today I 22nd May 2015

With 75 Vedanta Khushi child care centres across India, Vedanta’s company in Rajasthan, Hindustan Zinc and Vedanta foundation adopts 3055 Anganwadis to provide nutrition-health-education to underprivileged children

You visit any of the 75 across India spread Vedanta “Khushi” centres and you will find many stories surrounding the deprived children, who are given daily three meals, uniform, drinking water, books, utensils, toys and colourful posters to enjoy the education through play-way method.

Where Radha takes-out groundnuts from her ‘breakfast poha’, to eat it later, Billu likes playing with the ‘puppets’. Some children play with blocks and some like swings. Every morning their day starts with the prayer and follows with joyful classes. Ask them to sit for breakfast or for lunch without washing hands, and they would refuse. Hygiene has been imbedded in their course-curriculum.  

Care for the underprivileged children is very close to the heart of Anil Agarwal, Chairman of Vedanta Group. “No child in India should remain malnourished and be deprived of nutrition, health and primary education” is what he has envisaged. “Make India a child-malnourished free nation” is what he wants to see. In this process Vedanta initiated adoption of government run Anganwadis in the year 2008. The intervention was for a limited period, benefiting children in age-group of 0-6 years.

A country that has the highest number of malnourished children in the world and also accounts for largest child deaths, the private sector intervention, under public-private-partnership model, becomes significant.

Recently, Vedanta Foundation, Hindustan Zinc and Government of Rajasthan signed a 5 years MoU for the adoption of 3055 Anganwadis in Rajasthan. Rajasthan Government has a strong focus on child care and under this MoU, Vedanta Foundation and Hindustan Zinc would also develop 1000 Anganwadis into model Anganwadis. Besides regular facilities to all the 3055 Anganwadis, like books, toys, drinking water, mats, utensils, etc., the 1000 Anganwadis will see strengthening of infrastructure, child-friendly toilets, colourful walls, smokeless chulah to name a few.

200 Anganwadis will see facelift every year so as to complete the project in 5 years. The company has deputed coordinators, supervisors and senior-supervisors to ensure smooth functioning of the Vedanta “Khushi” centres and adopted Anganwadis.

As per the guidelines of World Health Organization, all the selected 3055 Anganwadis will have digital weighing scale to keep record of growth of children. Special emphasis has been given to health & hygiene and monitoring of weight of these children.

Pavan Kaushik, Head of Corporate Communication (Hindustan Zinc), said - “taking care of the underprovided children, their nutrition, health and primary education, is an agenda Company has been following for almost 7 years. We are also grateful to Government of Rajasthan for signing a MoU in this regard under the PPP Model. This joint effort is expected to benefit about 90,000 children every year. Besides providing the necessary colourful books, toys and other material in Anganwadis, our focus is also to provide requisite orientation and training to the Anganwadi workers in the adopted Anganwadis.”

On one hand when Vedanta has gone yet again for the adoption of Anganwadis, its campaign “Khushi” has been tirelessly spreading the message of child-care. The message on social media has large followers and runs a blog that has 1.5 million page views. Several debates on child-care issues have been undertaken by “Khushi” that had given some logical conclusion.  It was in a debate in Vedanta “Khushi” that had brought focus on adoption of government schools to improve infrastructure so that more and more rural children are inclined to go to school. As a result, Hindustan Zinc adopted 150 schools to improve their infrastructure and has also signed a MoU with Rajasthan Government to construct toilets in over 600 schools in Rajasthan.

HINDUSTAN ZINC AWARDED WITH "PLATTS INDUSTRY LEADERSHIP FOR BASE METALS AWARD 2015"

We are very pleased to inform that Hindustan Zinc has been awarded with "Platts Industry Leadership for Base Metals Award 2015" in a glittering event organized by Platts in London. The award was received Mr. Deepak Kumar from Vedanta’s London office on behalf of Hindustan Zinc.

This award recognizes base metals companies that have weathered the ups and downs by taking action to improve efficiency, tailor their output to meet demand, and focus on core strengths. Judges identified winners based on right decisions about investment, growth prospects and diversity in preparation for opportunities ahead.  It also included Financial Results, Innovation, Product Quality, Safety and Strategic Vision.

Founded in 1909, Platts is a leading global provider of energy, petrochemicals, metals and agriculture information and a premier source of benchmark prices for the physical and futures markets.  Platts' news, pricing, analytics, commentary and conferences help customers make better-informed trading and business decisions and help the markets operate with greater transparency and efficiency.  Customers in more than 150 countries benefit from Platts’ coverage of the biofuels, carbon emissions, coal, electricity, oil, natural gas, metals, nuclear power, petrochemical, shipping and sugar markets.  

HINDUSTAN ZINC - PLANT VISIT - TEAM OF 38 PEOPLE FROM PTI VISITS "SAKHI" AND "SK MINES"

A team of 38 people from PTI including journalists and Bureau Chiefs visited Hindustan Zinc on 19^th April 2015 from Delhi, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Gujarat, West Bengal, Rajasthan, Punjab and Haryana. As part of Branding exercise, the Corporate Communication team screened “Partners in Prosperity” film and also “Sakhi” and “Khushi” film. Myself gave presentation on Hindustan Zinc – Business and CSR and spoke about need for utilization of natural resources in India.  Mr. CSR Mehta briefed them about Hindustan Zinc’s focus on health, safety and environment and how these key values are driven across Group.

Hindustan Zinc had organized an exhibtion of “Sakhi” products which was keenly seen by PTI team, who also purchased a number of items of “Sakhi” brand. Each member of the PTI team was also given  a handicraft made by “Sakhi”.

Post this, PTI team went to see SK Mines and the team at SK Mine first gave them an extensive safety briefing and then took them inside the mine in 2 batches of 16 each. This was the first time any of the member had seen a mine from inside and got acquainted to modern mining technology. It was a memorable trip for them.

Showcasing few pictures on the visit….

HINDUSTAN ZINC - MAIL TODAY - MY SAFETY IS MY RESPONSIBILITY

MAIL TODAY | 10th MARCH, 2015

The high frequency of road accidents in India is only a testimony of ignorance and disrespect towards safety. The fact cannot be ignored that more people die in road accidents in India than anywhere else in the world. Hindustan Zinc along with ‘Rajasthan Parivahan Nirikshak Sangh’ developed a Mobile Model for road safety education in Rajasthan.

A child of 13 years was sitting with his father on a scooter, when suddenly a car over-took from a wrong direction, forcing the father to apply instant brakes. The scooter stopped. Car went ahead without bothering. The father looked back, his son was safe and he was safe too. Both were wearing helmets, it was well tied-up and both were alert.

It is said, “a life saved, saves the lives of an entire family”. So true, when we care so much for lives of our family, how can we ignore the very basis life our own-self. When we know, we are the basis of the lives of our family.

‘Safety’ is not just a six letter-word, it actually defines the well-being of the entire society and finally a country. It is important to adopt safety as a habit rather than feel it is being imposed. We generally feel victims when safety is forced upon us, ignoring the facts that it is being implemented to only make our lives safer and our families peaceful.

Most of the time, the people are aware of the consequences of ignoring safety gadgets. Most of the time, the rules & regulations are ignored, for the sake of a casual behaviour towards safety.

It is ironical to penalize a person not wearing helmet by Police, knowing the fact that wearing helmet will protect the very same person from head-injury during an un-welcomed accident, which has all the potential to become fatal.

The high frequency of road accidents in India is only a testimony of ignorance and disrespect towards safety. The fact cannot be ignored that more people die in road accidents in India than anywhere else in the world.

“Where ignorance is the reason, education can become bliss”.

The need to educate masses about the necessity of safety and making them realize the fact that it is not just a matter of their life, it the life of their family that depends on them.

Accepting the grave need towards formulation of right strategy, and realizing its importance, common masses, opinion makers, government, corporates, NGOs, and other agencies have united in Rajasthan to develop a new method towards spreading message.

As a large corporate, Hindustan Zinc, world’s leading Zinc-Lead and Silver producer, a Vedanta Group company, has joined hands with Rajasthan Parivahan Nirikshak Sangh (RPNS) – a body affiliated to All India Federation of Motor Vehicles Department Technical Executive Officers Association, Bangalore, to spread the message through technology driven Road Safety Mobile Van.

This fully equipped Road Safety Mobile Van is equipped with the facility like LCD Projector with a projection screen of 42” (LCD TV), a high-decibel sound system with amplifier to reach large audience, laptop, digital camera etc. This Road Safety Mobile Van also has a digital inverter for power backup and is proving to be useful in villages where there are power-cuts. The method of teaching involves audio-video training sessions of 90 minutes, guidelines and educating traffic rules, behavioral training on road safety, first aid etc. The program is more of interactive nature and involves the audience through question and answer sessions. Road-safety guidelines are also distributed to audience. Special drives are also being launched in association with local police towards implementation of road safety rules.

This Road Safety Mobile Van would travel deep rural villages, schools and other areas and educate people about the road safety.

This unique Road Safety Mobile Van project has been sponsored by Hindustan Zinc under the “Rajasthan Road Safety Awareness Mission Program”.

Veerendra Singh Rathore, State President, Rajasthan Parivahan Nirikshak Sangh who is also the Project Head of Rajasthan Road Safety Education and Awareness Mission informed that “Road Safety Mobile Van” provided by Hindustan Zinc is proving to very useful. We are able to reach remote villages, schools and rural people. As the Van has video screen, we are able to show short films on road safety which is helping in making the people understand the gravity of situation.”

So far the project has reached about 100,000 people through conducting about 600 educational programs, which have resulted in decreasing the road accidents and injuries. There has been an increasing participation of employees of various small-big corporates. In district Rajsamand a success story has been drawn by witnessing 40% reduction in road accidents.

Hindustan Zinc spokesperson Pavan Kaushik informed that “Hindustan Zinc is concerned about the road safety and as a large corporate we feel we should help in spreading the message and decided to support Rajasthan Road Safety Awareness Mission Program. As part of our safety drills at all our business units, we regularly organize safety workshops which also has includes road safety, where in large number of employees participate.”

Inspired by the success of the program and its response, the Transport Department, Government of Rajasthan, is now planning to launch similar Road Safety Mobile Vans in all seven division of Rajasthan.

The success of this Rajasthan Government Model on Safety is now being replicated by other State Governments. The Transport Department of Uttar Pradesh and Karnataka are working towards developing ten such Road Safety Mobile Vans in their States to promote road safety education and awareness in public.

The Message is clear, safety cannot be ignored.

Ultimately, “My Safety is My Responsibility”, as my safety will also make my family safe, socially and economically.

TIMES OF INDIA HONOURS HZL FOR ITS SOCIAL COMMUNICATION CAMPAIGNS - SAKHI, KHUSHI AND MARYADAA

We are very pleased to inform that c in association with GD Goenka School has awarded Hindustan Zinc for its Social Communication Campaigns – Khushi, Sakhi and Maryadaa.

The award “Social Awareness Communication Award” was presented to Hindustan Zinc as part of Achievers of Mewar in a glittering event in Udaipur on 22^nd February 2015.

The communication team received the award on behalf of Hindustan Zinc.

CHRO ASIA HONOURS HINDUSTAN ZINC - HR AWARDS TO BIRENDRA MOHAPATRA (HR-HEAD)

Hindustan Zinc received an award in Human Resource by CHRO Asia during the 23rd Edition of the World HRD Congress held in Mumbai on 17th February 2015. 

The award, “100 Most Talented Global HR Leaders” was given to Mr. Birendra Mohapatra - Head of Human Resource, HZL. 

This award has been constituted to honour HR Professionals who have given significant contribution in the field of Human Resource Management.

“PROUD TO BE AN INDIAN TO ACHIEVE THIS FEAT”, BHAKTI SHARMA

 Bhakti to join “Khushi” and “Sakhi” campaign of Vedanta Hindustan Zinc

“It was chilling cold water at Antarctic Ocean and I could see small and big ice-bergs moving. The ocean was not clear. This was making the passage for my swimming difficult and challenging. At this juncture the ship helped in moving the small and medium ice-bergs and my passage was some-what clear. Second was to ensure that there are no ‘Leopard Seals’, a large fish that can eat whales. My distance was set to be travelled towards the ship. Before entering the water, I thought of my country and I realized this is the day I can make my country India proud”, said Bhakti Sharma who has just returned to India after setting world record in open-water swimming.

Hindustan Zinc, a Vedanta Group company in zinc-lead-silver business in Rajasthan had supported and sponsored Bhakti Sharma for this venture. “I had lost all hopes and that is where Hindustan Zinc came forward and instantly agreed to support me. Had I not received this support, I would have never been able to achieve this success’, said Bhakti Sharma.

Bhakti travelled 1.4 miles in 1 degree temperature in Antarctic Ocean on 10th January 2015. She is the first women of India to achieve this feat, beating the record of British open water swimming champion Lewis Pugh and American swimmer Lynne Cox. She is now the youngest citizen of the world and the first Asian girl to have achieved this success. Bhakti Sharma has now conquered all the 5 oceans of the world and she has broken this record after 12 years.

“The crew members on the ship found it difficult to believe an Indian coming to attempt such a feat as the Indian climate is extremely different from those conditions. We do not have such chilling cold in India and thus our bodies are not tuned to handle such cold water”, said Bhakti.

On what next Bhakti said, she would now work for the malnourished children and towards women empowerment in Rajasthan and would be joining Vedanta’s Hindustan Zinc campaign “Khushi” and “Sakhi”. Campaign “Khushi” is a non-funding campaign by the company that is spreading message towards care for the underprivileged children in India, for their nutrition, health and education. Campaign “Sakhi” is towards socio-economic empowerment of rural women. “I have spoken with Mr. Akhilesh Joshi, CEO of Hindustan Zinc about my interest and he has readily agreed’, said Bhakti.

Speaking on the occasion, Mr. Akhilesh Joshi, CEO Hindustan Zinc said, ‘Bhakti Sharma achievement is a landmark success for India, we all are very proud. Her achievement only proves that Indian girls can do marvels if given the right opportunities and support. Hindustan Zinc is a Rajasthan based company and Bhakti Sharma is from Rajasthan too. In the past also we have supported Rajasthan sports talents and we would continue to do so.”

President and Prime Minister too lauded open water swimmer Bhakti for her accomplishment of setting this world record.

INDIA'S SWIMMER BHAKTI SHARMA SETS WORLD RECORD IN ANTARCTIC OCEAN

“Grateful to Hindustan Zinc for supporting me when I had lost hope" says Bhakti.

The open water swimming champion Bhakti Sharma has set the world record by swimming 1.4 miles in 52 minutes in 1 degree temperature at Antarctic Ocean. She is the first women of India to achieve this feat, beating the record of British open water swimming champion Lewis Pugh and American swimmer Lynne Cox. She is now the youngest citizen of the world and the first Asian girl to have achieved this success. Bhakti Sharma has now conquered all the 5 oceans of the world.

Hindustan Zinc had come forward to sponsored Bhakti Sharma towards her mission. Hearing the news, Akhilesh Joshi, the Chief Executive Officer of Hindustan Zinc said, “we are very proud of Bhakti Sharma for this rare achievement. Whole country is proud of her and particularly girls who would be seeing her as inspiration to join swimming. Her achievement only proves that given the right support and opportunities India can produce many such talents.”

As informed, Bhakti expressed her gratefulness towards Hindustan Zinc for supporting her when she had lost hope for her mission and needed the support.

Bhakti Sharma has been pursuing open water swimming for the last 10 years and has also swam across 4 oceans, 8 channels and seas, which itself is a world record. These records have been made by her during the year 2004-2010. In the year 2010 President of India awarded her with Tenzing Norgay National Adventure Award. In 2006 Rajasthan government also recognized and commended her efforts.