Water covers a major part of the globe but paradoxically safe and clean water for human consumption, agriculture and sanitation has become a precious resource. In the communities around us it is common to see people trekking long distances to fetch water for their homes. We stand passionately committed to its responsible consumption. A significant part of our community service has been bringing piped water to the villages around us. Our communities every year see floods and drought. We have worked hand in hand with the local Government to ensure that the excess and deficient periods are managed by creating water bodies and riverine embankments. This has immensely helped in mitigating the hardships faced by the community.

Our Jharsuguda Plant has 4 large reservoirs and in all their storage capacity is about 227,000 cubic meters. All runoff water from the rooftop and open areas is channelised to the reservoirs. A significant part of the collected water eventually seeps through the ground and maintains the water table up. Ground water is used in the plant premises only for human consumption. Excessive use of ground water for agriculture has been depressing the water table and our effort has been to reverse this with rainwater harvesting.

Our operational requirement of water is 93,000 cubic meters per month. We use the water from the adjoining River Ib, when the flow is plentiful and at other times the rainwater collected in the reservoir is used.

There is a continuous focus on bringing down the energy consumed in the plant. The plant consumes most of the power generated by a captive power plant and the balance is sourced from the grid. The interesting feature of the captive power plant is the optimal use of waste heat recovery boiler which not only recovers the energy from the flue gases that would have been otherwise wasted, but also reduces the temperature of the emission to the atmosphere.

The Company intends to generate solar power. The plan is to place the solar panels above the vast reservoir in the plant. This location coupled with other measures will help conserve the stored water by reducing the evaporation loss.

The plant is equipped with electrostatic precipitators, bag filters pneumatic ash handling system, sprinklers and the emissions are monitored for particulate matter, sulphur dioxide and oxides of nitrogen and kept under the statutory limits.

The flue gases are passed through waste recovery boiler which while conserving energy also reduce the temperature of the gaseous emissions for managing the air quality.

More than one third of the plant premises is covered with greenery. This is a model often lauded and cited by the regulatory authorities namely, the Pollution Control Board, Forest Department and the local administration. These efforts immensely help in the local area cooling, air quality and ecology of the area.

Going beyond our own premises we have taken large scale plantation in the community and the educational institutions around us.

Noise and Vibrations are kept in control by regular monitoring. Standard maintenance processes of plant and equipment ensure that we are within the statutory limits. Employees have been provided with personal protection equipment for use in work areas exposed to the risk of noise or heat.

A major part of our process output is converted to useful products:

1. Char from sponge iron is used in power production.

2. Fly ash waste is recycled in making fly ash bricks.

3. There is zero water discharge (ZWD) and recirculation of reuse.

4. Zero use of single use plastic.