Agnivahini, Vedanta Aluminium's all-female firefighting team reaches 100 members

By: WE Staff | Friday, 28 April 2023

The largest aluminium producer in India, Vedanta Aluminium, announces the addition of 100 new members to its Agnivahini firefighting squad in advance of the World Day for Safety and Health at Work. This exceptional group of female employees has received significant training in the challenging but essential skill of fighting fires.

The squad will strengthen fire incident prevention and mitigation methods at the company's activities in Jharsuguda, which is home to one of the biggest aluminium smelters in the world, in collaboration with the fire safety team.

The business has also created a new, concrete symbol of its stance that all professional jobs, whether technical or non-technical, should be based on skill rather than gender. The Agnivahini training program, which began in 2018, has officially accepted its sixth group of qualified firemen. Women employees are urged to volunteer for the project, where they get intensive training over the course of three months.

The training program contains theoretical and practical modules that cover fundamental methods for preventing and fighting fires, being ready for emergencies, and conducting emergency exercises on-site.

To improve onsite fire readiness and safety, the squad collaborates with plant fire safety teams to identify possible fire dangers and carry out fire prevention audits. Additionally, members of the Agnivahini teach people in the Jharsuguda area about fire safety, therefore raising their level of preparedness.

Mr. Sunil Gupta, CEO of Vedanta Limited in Jharsuguda, highlighted the initiative's effects by saying, "At Vedanta Aluminium, safety and health at work remain among our top priorities. We are committed to continuously recalibrating our approach and introducing new, innovative practices to provide a safer and healthier work environment for all of our employees and business partners. We are pleased to have trained more than 100 female firemen as part of the "Agnivahini" project, a fantastic result of our endeavour. Our risk mitigation plans and techniques have developed along with our operations, keeping up with best practices throughout the world and setting new standards.”

By continually identifying gaps and enhancing its Safety Management System with cutting-edge technology, reliable procedures, and an unwavering emphasis on assuring behavior-based safety, Vedanta Aluminium is trying to create a safer workplace and community.

Through this procedure, extensive safety protocols were introduced. Additionally, 240 employees were trained, and they were given the title of "Safety Standards Champions" to promote implementation.

The largest producer of aluminium in India is Vedanta Aluminium, a division of Vedanta Limited, which produced 2.29 million tonnes of aluminium in FY23, more than half of the country's total production. It is a leader in the development of added-value aluminium products, which are crucial in important industries.

The Dow Jones Sustainability Index (DJSI) 2022 world rankings for the aluminium industry place Vedanta Aluminium second, which is a result of its commitment to sustainable development. The company achieves its goal of promoting innovative applications for aluminium as the "Metal of the Future" for a greener world thanks to its first-rate alumina refinery, power plants, and aluminium smelters in India.