Hindustan Zinc wins CII National Award for Environmental Best Practices 2021

Udaipur : Epitomizing to the company’s vision of ‘Protecting and enhancing

biodiversity for a sustainable future’, Hindustan Zinc has won the ‘Most Innovative Environmental ProjectAward’for its Chanderiya Lead Zinc Smelter (CLZS) – Restoration of Jarofix Yard and‘Innovative Environmental Project Award’ for Biodiversity Park at Rajpura Dariba Mine -in therenowned CII National Award for Environmental Best Practices 2021.

Commenting on the accomplishment, CEO of Hindustan Zinc, Mr. Arun Misra, said, “We at Hindustan Zinc strongly believe that our commitment to sustainability will lead us to a healthier and greener tomorrow not just for ourselves but also for future generations. As a responsible corporate, we have put before ourselves rigorous and ambitious Sustainability Development Goals 2025 and each step we take is directed to achieving them. The two projects including plantation of 50000 plants in Biodiversity Park at Rajpura Dariba Mine and developing green area on the waste land in collaboration with The Energy and Research Institute (TERI) have been recognized as innovative environmental projects by the industry and make us proud of our green steps. They exemplify our company’s vision of protecting and conserving the biodiversity around us to achieve a minimum of No Net Loss (NNL) of biodiversity and Net Positive Gain (NPG) of biodiversity at all our operations.”

Over 10 hectares of land withinthe Rajpura Dariba Minehas been developed as Biodiversity Park, wherein more than50,000 plants of 42 different species were planted. Earlier the entire area was covered with invasive species, after soil enrichment and conditioning, the area has now been converted into a green land. The Chanderiya Lead Zinc Smelter team in collaboration with TERI (The Energy and Research Institute) has used Mycorrhiza technology for the development of 3-hectareGreen area on its exhausted Jarofix Waste yard. The Mycorrhiza technology is a symbiotic association between a plant and a fungus, where the plant provides food for the fungus and the fungus draws nutrients from the soil and adds to the improvement of cultivation processes, rejuvenation of fertile soils, and reclamation of wasteland into productive land in a sustainable manner.

Among all the 196 Projects that had applied, the Restoration of Jarofix Yard Project and the Biodiversity Park Project were shortlisted in the 35 Environment Best Practice Projects.Tarun Meghwal- Sr. Manager Environment, Vijay Rana- Manager Process, Manisha Bhati – Deputy Manager Environment and Harish Chaturvedi– Executive Environment from the Chanderiya team and Vivek Kumar – Head Environment DSC and Himanshu Sharda – Team Member Environment RDM teampresented the project to jury members of esteemed Industry professional and received huge appreciation for the project and its implementation by the Jury Team.

This achievement is truly an honour for the entire Hindustan Zinc team for their commitment to the conservation of biodiversity. With this success, the Chanderiya Lead Zinc Smelter team and Rajpura Dariba Minesteam have created a benchmark project for the Mining and Metal industries.