150 water infrastructures dedicated to community since inception
Team News Riveting
Balconagar, August 25
Bharat Aluminium Company Limited (BALCO), India’s iconic aluminium producer and a subsidiary of Vedanta Aluminium, is helping local communities get sustainable access to quality water by constructing and rejuvenating farm ponds, community ponds and farm bunds.
Availability of water is a prerequisite for ensuring unhindered agricultural operations, meeting the needs of the nearby communities and maintaining the ecological balance of the surrounding ecosystem. To aid local communities with their drinking water and irrigation needs, BALCO has constructed a total of 108 water infrastructures (19 farm ponds, 2 community ponds, 81 farm bunds, 6 dug wells) in FY23 with a total storage capacity of approximately 21 million litres. Since inception, the company has developed more than 150 check dams, farm ponds, community ponds etc. in the region, with cumulative storage capacity of 85 million litres.
These water infrastructures are benefitting over 200 farmers of neighbouring villages by enabling them to harvest more than one crop in a year due to increased availability of water. Apart from helping the local community, the water structures have also contributed towards increasing soil moisture content and maintaining groundwater levels, thus positively impacting the agricultural ecosystem in the region.
Speaking about the importance of the initiative, Abhijit Pati, CEO and Director, BALCO, said, “Water is a critical shared resource, highly interconnected with our land, climate, ecosystems, as well as society, culture, and the economy. And hence, at BALCO we focus on effective management of this resource, for improving the livelihoods of the local communities and maintaining the natural ecosystem of the region. Committed to our mission of excellence in environment management, we, at BALCO, are dedicated towards transforming the societies and environment for good.”
Ashok Manjhwar, a farmer of Karumouha village, said, “The water infrastructures built by BALCO have proved to be of immense help to me and my community members. With the increased availability of water, we are now able to follow a multiple cropping system, which has improved our yield and enhanced our household incomes.”
Dr. S Shrivastava, Regional Manager of Action for Food Production (AFPRO) Raipur, added, “AFPRO has been BALCO’s partner in effective management of natural resources and its allied sector interventions for socio-economic development of the farming community and sustainable environmental management. AFPRO is grateful to BALCO for this partnership, which converted a visionary thought process and environmental consciousness into actions that uplift the society and positively impact our environment.”
Bharat Aluminium Company Limited (BALCO) is India’s iconic aluminium producer. It is owned 49 per cent by the Government of India and 51 per cent by Vedanta Limited. BALCO is part of Vedanta’s Aluminium Business, a division of Vedanta Limited, which is India’s largest manufacturer of aluminium. BALCO operates a 0.57 million tonne per annum aluminium smelter in Korba, Chhattisgarh. It is also a leader in value-added aluminium products that find critical applications in core industries. With its world-class smelter and power plants, the company fulfills its mission of spurring emerging applications of aluminium as the ‘Metal of the Future’ for a greener tomorrow.
