Programme and Foundation

Programmes

Programmes

Working with Communities is an important part of Vedanta’s sustainability strategy. They are an integral element of how we conduct business and the development of our medium and long-term plans and strategies at unit and group level. Our unique approach and our ability to work collaboratively has been an important element of our licence to operate and long-term success.

Social Investment

Social investment (SI) programmes are defined as the voluntary contributions Companies make to the communities and broader societies where they operate, with the objective of benefiting external stakeholders, typically through the transfer of skills or resources. The various social investment sectors at the Vedanta Group of companies are as follows:-

Community Health
Education
Sustainable Livelihood Promotion

Community Health

Community involvement and collaborations are cornerstones of public health action. Human health in its broadest sense of physical, mental and spiritual well being is to a great extent dependent on the access of the citizen to a healthy environment. We at Vedanta recognize the importance of health in the socio- economic development and the efficacious role it can play in improving the quality of life of the people. Our approach is both curative and preventive with a resolve to institutionalize positive behaviour towards health in the communities. We partner with various Government and Non Government agencies in implementing National health programs for communicable and non communicable diseases.

Total sanitation concept, safe drinking water and immunization are key initiative under our preventive approach. Behavioral change of a million people on the issue of HIV AIDS has been a key driver in our African operations. Our calendared mobile health clinics and awareness camps go a long way in preventing out break disease in the communities. For deeper penetration, health post render primary health services in remote tribal places. For children in 3 to 6 age segment, the group has a focused national program to reach a million children by 2010 through ICDS collaboration. This program has a support from the community youth to ensure the sustainability after the phase out stage.

Our group company operates 8 hospitals and they extend their services to half a million people including employees and their families. This includes health care, diagnostic and treatment services. Through special health camps, eye cataract, artificial limbs and family planning surgeries are regular feature of our curative health program. Under sectoral intervention this year we included cancer detection through Vedanta mobile cancer vans in our curative care portfolio. The group is also in the process of establishment of 350 bed Vedanta Cancer Hospital and Vedanta Heart Care Hospitals through public private partnership model.

Education

Education is important for development and plays a vital role in moulding the future of our children. Impact of education is visible in all sectors such as health, women development, employment, child development, others At Vedanta, it has ingrained in the core values of all our Group companies to take every effort to facilitate imparting quality education to all target groups. The basic approach entails partnering with Government and Non Government Agencies for the implementation of need based initiatives.

Aiming at pre-school education and addressing mal-nutrition, Child Care Centres are running across operations. Improving performance, schools are supported with basic infrastructure facilities creating enabling environment at schools. Under public private partnership we are also establishing educational institutions. Promoting computer literacy, we are proactively engaged in establishment of infrastructure facilities and imparting training to children and teachers. Imparting functional literacy among rural women is another significant area of contribution through Non Formal Education centres.

Mid Day Meal is another key area where the Group has actively engaged itself. Centralized high tech kitchens have been established in HZL operational area which is catering to 1.8 lacs students of primary and middle schools. These kitchens serve high quality nutritious food which has helped immensely in improving the attendance and retention in schools.

Sustainable Livelihood

We are committed to raise quality of life of the communities by engaging ourselves meaningfully with our community. We aim to empower community economically by taking various initiatives unleashing their power to exercise their choice to financial decisions. Our engagement in Farm and Non Farm activities has given opportunity to marginalized section of society to enhance their income.

The basic approach is to carve out interventions which are technically feasible, financially viable, ecologically sustainable, and culturally acceptable. The Group companies are investing in making Community Based Organizations (CBO) like Self Help Groups (SHG), Co-operatives, etc. economically independent with an emphasis on using local resources for livelihood creation. Skill building and promoting entrepreneurship for gainful employment have always been accorded priority at Vedanta. Women SHG have been trained in different arts of livelihood generation. Group companies are actively engrossed in imparting trade specialized training to unemployed youth.

Bio-Investment

Sustainable development has become an integrating concept embracing economic, social and the environment.

At Vedanta we believe in restoring natural systems and improving natural resource management practices at the grass root level, a strategy central to eliminating poverty at the rural level. Watershed management, Wadi development, Cattle breed improvement, Cash crop farming like strawberries are some of the exemplary initiatives undertaken in the farm sector. The integration of agriculture with land water management and eco-system conservation, is essential part of the bio investment with a space for rural livelihood generation schemes both at community level and individual level. Bio- mass is and will continue for a long time to be, a major source of the fuel and energy especially in rural area. Recognizing this fact we at Vedanta support this concept and integrate it in our sustainable programs. Our approach to bio investment and natural resource management such as traditional ponds, water harvesting through watershed area, development of green belts with massive plantation, waste management and recycling has enabled us to revive the institutional mechanism and the spirit of the community management inherent in those systems. Land reclamation and massive plantations in land fill area is inbuilt in our mining practices across the units.

Integrated Village Development Programme

The Integrated Village Development Programme (IVDP) is our flagship project. The programme’s fundamental objective is to provide an enabling environment for holistic development of the villages for inclusive growth. The plan included infrastructural support, health, education, environmental, livelihood, energy and human resource need of the local people. It also encouraged participation of people to collectively manage their resources independently. The steps taken were:

Community mobilisation and engagement for bottom up planning.
Independent survey and inventory by an external agency.
Periodic meetings with the local government and community on the action plan.
Collective action in education, sanitation, gender bias, livelihood.
Backward dissemination of the plan to the Ward through Panchayat/Gram Sabha.
Monitoring evaluation and communication on progress.

Impact and Outcome

In 2008, we conducted a social assessment across all our locations. KPMG Observations on Social Assessment

Progress: Vedanta’s CSR strategy has made significant progress since its inception in a formalised manner, three to four years ago. A large number of community-level investments have been made in education, health, livelihood development, micro-finance and infrastructure (water supply, roads, buildings) in villages across Business Units. Vedanta’s High Impact Projects (stand-alone projects backed by a larger investment) are showing a positive impact at scale across the Group, most notably the Vedanta Bal Chetna Anganwadi Project (Child Care Centres) and Computer Education project.

People: Vedanta’s progress on CSR has been greatly assisted by the dedicated and well-resourced CSR teams in place at each Business Unit. Recognizing the need to understand communities before making investments, Vedanta’s CSR teams include social development professionals, able to bridge the Company- Community perspective.

Similarly, we were assessed by other social organization in Rajasthan and Orissa to assess the impact brought through our intensive approach, the Integrated Village Development Program.

The extracts of the audit by ORG, New Delhi for HZL and AISD, Ranchi for VAL, Lanjigarh highlight:

HZL Facts

Intensive planning for 32 remote villages in 4 districts around business operations.
Baseline assessment undertaken in 2006.
Three Year rolling plan implemented.
Focus on education, health, sanitation and livelihoods.
Institutionalized community based organization in these 32 villages.

Impact

72% growth in basic services and amenities in these 32 villages
Focus on nutrition of children aged 3-14 years (Anganwadi and Elementary education) with a outreach of more than 2.0 lac children in 4 districts.
40% improvement in women participation in development initiatives through institution building and self help group.
Improvement in income level to Rs 8000 per month after undertaking vocational training among 72% targeted families.
Empowered 215 women Self Help Groups encompassing 3400 membership.
Village development committees capacitated to carry forward the development affairs and ensure sustainability of the outcomes.

VAL, Lanjigarh Facts

In 2004, VAL, Lanjigarh rehabilitated and resettled 118 families from three villages keeping the fabric of their tradition and culture intact.
Post ITI training, 76 youths from the displaced families were employed with the company, earning approximately INR 1, 80,000 per annum, 3–4 times their income before advent of VAL.
53 villages of Lanjigarh Block have extensive CSR interventions.
MHU provides primary health service to 32,000+ people in partnership with the District Health Department.
38 Child Care Centres, 105 VBCA’s with an enrollment of 12,000+ children.
2 villages electrified under project Ujala.
Livelihood witnessed shift from subsistence farming to cash crop and multiple cropping.

Impact Assessment report of AISD states quality of life has vividly improved, during the period (2004-08):

IMR reduced from 200 to 75 per thousand live birth.
Child malnutrition down 58% to 31%.
Immunisation increased from 35% to 71%.
Malarial death dropped from 80% to 20%.
School Drop-out rate down from 70% to 20%.
School attendance increased from 45% to 86%.
Farm man days employment increased from 120 to 250 days.
Surface irrigation increased 35% through stream diversion method;
More than 750 acres of land under vegetable cultivation.
Crop failure reduced nearly 50% due to improved cultivation techniques, plant protection.
Roads, drains, tube-wells, enabled communication, hygienic sanitation and potable water for 50,000+ people.

Activities	2008-09	2007-08
Company run schools and colleges	27	16
Number of Child Care Centres	83	93
Number of Anganwadi centres	937	900
Number of children enrolled in Anganwadi centres	30,347	25,000
Number of persons enrolled in computer education and adult literacy programmes	44,313	55,000
Company run hospitals	18	8
Total patients treated in company run hospitals	0.64 million	0.5 million
Total health outreach through health posts/clinics, mobile health units, camps	0.84 million	1 million
Number of Mid-day meal kitchens	6	6
Number of children covered by the mid-day meal program	180,000	180,000
Farmers covered:under agriculture, watershed and animal husbandry initiatives	29235	12050
Total land covered under agriculture and Watershed programme	3,225 acres	3,120 acres

Society