By August, every Vedanta staffer to be vaccinated | Economic Times

Martin Luther King, Jr. famously said, “We must accept finite disappointment, but never lose infinite hope.” I am an eternal optimist, not because I believe circumstances are always favourable but because I know that human beings have an infinite ability to rise to challenges. None of us have ever experienced anything like this pandemic. Government alone cannot fight this battle. In many ways, business has an equal responsibility; to save the lives of our employees, partner SMEs and communities and to preserve livelihoods by keeping the wheels of the economy running.At Vedanta, safety is something we never compromise on. There is nothing more precious than life. At our production units, we adopted Covid-appropriate protocols while increasing efficiency and productivity to ensure that levels of production are maintained. The well-being of our communities is a clear priority. Human resources are the beating heart of any business. As our workforce has risen to the challenges presented by Covid, we are fully committed to safeguarding their interests. By August, each employee and business partner will be vaccinated. Already, insurance cover has been enhanced and benefits extended to those affected. For the families of employees who lost their lives to Covid, we will continue to pay the salary until date of retirement and fund the education of children till graduation.The first wave saw us create a safety net for our employees, families, and local communities, helping migrant workers, feeding animals, supplying ration to communities who were isolated due to Covid, even importing machines for emergency supply of PPEs to Covid Warriors. During the second wave, which had a more serious and severe impact on people’s health than the first wave, Vedanta’s business units worked closely with all levels of Government. We contributed hospital equipment, including critical care machines like ventilators while ensuring that oxygen from our units in Rajasthan, Jharkhand, Goa, and Tamil Nadu was provided free and in maximum quantity. In Tuticorin, our engineers performed a herculean feat by quickly restarting the oxygen plants of the copper unit that had been completely closed for three years. To augment health infrastructure, particularly in under-served geographies, we decided to set up 10 field hospitals pan India in Rajasthan, Karnataka, Odisha, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, TamilNadu, Haryana and Goa. These were built in a record time of three weeks. Most of these are tented facilities, fully air conditioned with Covid appropriate air filters and top of the line equipment. Each facility has 100 beds, including 20 for critical care (with a mix of mechanical and non-invasive ventilators) and the remaining 80 with oxygen support. The hospitals are a beautiful example of public-private partnership. In all ten locations, the district administrations and state governments are our partners.The first wave taught us many lessons and I am still amazed at the tenacity of my colleagues who continued to produce 80% output with 20% staff. In our business, technology and Innovation proved to be a big differentiator. In the past one year, Vedanta has migrated to an IT-enabled remote working environment, set up virtual war rooms, digital emergency command, control centres and leveraged drones at our plants and business locations. In no time, Vedanta became a technology savvier version of itself.Hindustan Zinc developed technologies to manage operations remotely while consolidating operational data from mines, mills, smelters and powerplants in a digital platform. Vedanta implemented industry-first digital smelters at one of its plants in Jharsuguda, Odisha, which is one of the largest smelters outside of China. The technology enables remote monitoring and controlling of operations.Cairn Oil & Gas has put in place a variety of digital technologies such as Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning and robotics for creative business problem solving, in order to do more with less. Extraordinary times require out of the box thinking. We must be innovative and empathetic. I am confident that science will eradicate this pandemic and we will all emerge stronger. The writer is the Executive Chairman of Vedanta Resources. All thoughts expressed above are the author's own.