Vedanta Aluminium recycles 12.5 billion litres of water in FY23

New Delhi, March 22, 2023: Vedanta Aluminium Business, India’s largest producer of aluminium, has recycled 12.5 billion litres of water as of February during FY 2022-23. On World Water Day, the company has also undertaken the groundbreaking ceremony of a new Sewage Treatment Plant (STP) with a processing capacity of 440 kilo litres per day (KLD), at its mega aluminium smelter in Jharsuguda. Once operational, the treated water from the facility will be reused within the plant premises, reducing fresh water consumption by 15 crore litres per year. This reiterates the company’s commitment to become Net Water Positive within the decade, leveraging advanced technologies for efficient water utilisation and community participation towards building a sustainable water footprint. Vedanta Aluminium’s water sustainability efforts are aligned to the 6th UN Sustainable Development Goal of ‘Clean Water and Sanitation’.  

In the week leading up to World Water Day, Vedanta Aluminium organized an interactive session with Ramveer Tanwar, popularly known as the Pond Man of India and a noted pond conservationist, to encourage employees and community members to work towards water conservation in their personal and professional capacities. Desilting and restoration activities of several waterbodies were also undertaken at its operations in Kalahandi and Jharsuguda districts, Odisha and in Korba, Chhattisgarh, with the active participation of employee volunteers and professional experts. Further, the company organized community marches and street plays at local educational institutions to spread increased awareness of the need to conserve water.  

Speaking about the program, Rahul Sharma, CEO, Vedanta Limited – Aluminium Business, said, “On World Water Day, we recommit to our mission of becoming Net Water Positive and ensuring a sustainable water footprint in the regions where we operate. The quality of our lives and business sustainability is contingent on the planet and hence, excellence in ESG (Environment, Social & Governance) forms the bedrock of our aspirations. Water is a critical shared resource that is crucial to sustaining the ecology and communities around us, and hence, our endeavours are aimed at ensuring the sustainability of our operations and making more water available for local communities and biodiversity.”

Commenting on the impact of the new STP project, Ajay Pandey, COO – Power, Vedanta Jharsuguda, said “Our operations maintain a laser-focus on ensuring the judicious usage of precious water resources. By deploying a strategic mix of resource conservation and source rejuvenation programs, we have been successful in achieving a steady improvement in our water management efforts. The new Sewage Treatment Plant provides an additional fillip to our efforts in this regard and will help accelerate our roadmap to water positivity.”