Lanjigarh,(Bhawanipatana)/ Kalinga Voice
Vedanta Limited, Lanjigarh unit, India’s premier producer of metallurgical grade alumina, observed the World Breastfeeding Week to sensitize pregnant women and lactating mothers on the importance of breastfeeding for children’s nutrition and overall development. A series of programs were conducted across seven gram panchayats around Vedanta’s Alumina Refinery in Lanjigarh, with nearly250 women attending the awareness sessions.
Medical professionals from Vedanta Hospital, Government Hospital, and Child Development Project Officers (CDPO) from Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS) Departmentinteracted with the women, imparted important information about the need and benefits of breastfeeding, and distributed information booklets and iron supplements to them.
Speaking on the occasion, Mr. GG Pal, Dy. CEO – Alumina Business, said, “Ensuring collective health and wellbeing of our communities is a key focus area of our social development initiatives. We have undertaken several health interventions in the region, including ensuring quality doorstep healthcare services to people in over 50 remote villages through Mobile Health Units. Our state-of-the-art Vedanta Hospital, which provides specialized medical services to the nearby communities, sees a daily footfall of over 200 people. Our health interventions have also resulted in significantly reducing the incidence of malarial deaths in the region. With these projects, and many more health interventions, we are committed in our efforts to improve the quality of life of our local communities.”
Notably, Vedanta Lanjigarh has won Silver Award at the 5th CSR Health Impact Awards: Covid-19 Edition, organized by IHW Council under the category Rural Health Initiative (Below 1 Cr) for Project Aarogya. The project covers multiple healthcare initiatives taken by the company, such as Vedanta Hospital, Mobile Health Unit, Community Healthcare Awareness, etc., towards helping communities tide over the pandemic.
Appreciating the initiative, Smt. Jyoshana Rani Mishra, ICDS Supervisor, Lanjigarh, said, “I appreciate Vedanta’s exemplary work in sensitizing the community towards the importance of breastfeeding. My special thanks to the team fordistributing information booklets and iron supplements to pregnant ladies and lactating mothers.”
In line with the company’s objective of improving the health conditions of local communities, Vedanta provides a wide spectrum of basic and specialized health services, which include mobile health units (MHU), basic health services with childcare facilities, multi-specialty health camps, and many more.
Vedanta’s social interventions in the domains of sustainable livelihood, women empowerment, health, quality education,water and sanitation, bio-investment and community infrastructure reach out to about 60 villages in Lanjigarh and nearby areas, benefiting about a lakh people in a year. It empowers more than 3000 women from 305 self-help groups (SHGs), provides healthcare services to about 60,000 people annually, gives educational support to more than 2800 students, has planted more than 5.4 lakh trees in the community, and built 500 plus infrastructural projects at a community level.
Vedanta is the largest producer of aluminium in India and remains the premier manufacturer of metallurgical grade alumina. The company operates a 2 MTPA (million tonnes per annum) capacity alumina refinery in Lanjigarh (Kalahandi district, Odisha), India since 2007 and an associated 90 MW captive power plant.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.
