Read Bureau Prayagraj. Report by Daya Shankar Tripathi.
Vedanta Aluminum, India’s largest aluminum producer, has announced the deployment of an all-women team to lead the Distributed Control System (DCS) at its Alumina Refinery in Lanjigarh, Odisha.
This group of 40 trained women professionals will now operate the nerve center of the refinery, one of the most technically complex and safety critical areas of plant operations. This initiative, launched on the occasion of International Women’s Day, is considered an important step towards the participation of women in key industrial and process control roles in India.
DCS is the core of the refinery, ensuring smooth control of production processes by integrating hundreds of data streams. By involving women in this digital work, Vedanta Aluminum further strengthens its commitment to building an inclusive industrial workforce. Their role includes real-time monitoring of process parameters, analyzing operational trends, assessing safety alarms, and taking quick decisions to keep refinery operations stable, efficient and safe.
Commenting on this achievement, Rajeev Kumar, CEO, Vedanta Aluminium, said, “At Vedanta Aluminum, empowering women to lead high-skilled industrial jobs is not just an initiative, but our direction as a company. As more women operate command centres, smelters, locomotives and safety systems, we are creating a manufacturing ecosystem where gender is not a barrier to excellence. Women’s participation has grown significantly. “Our long-term ambition to grow the workforce reflects our belief that women will play a key role in the next great leap in industrial growth.”
The initiative is part of a broader transformation effort by Vedanta Aluminum aimed at expanding opportunities for women in high-skilled industrial jobs. Anjani Kumari, DCS, a member of the team, said, “Working at the Command Center gives me the confidence that women can also play a central role in the manufacturing sector. I hope that our team will inspire many more young women to pursue careers in engineering and operations.”
Over the past few years, Vedanta Aluminum has launched India’s first all-women-run potline and deployed more than 100 women in key smelting and production roles. The company has also introduced the country’s first all-female locomotive engine crew at its aluminum operations, setting new standards for inclusion in traditionally male-dominated roles. Apart from this, Vedanta Aluminum also became the first company in Odisha to include women in night shift. Further strengthening the safety and emergency preparedness, the company has deployed an all-women firefighting and emergency response unit called Agnivahini. More than 100 women have been trained as frontline security personnel through this unit, leading to better preparedness and a stronger security culture in operations.
Recently, Vedanta Aluminum also established an all-women Thermal Power Operations team to handle the operations of a 135 MW power unit, further strengthening its leadership role in industrial practices promoting gender equality. Now a large number of women are contributing in roles like quality laboratory, digitalization related work and mining engineering. Along with this, participation of women in high-tech and high-responsibility positions in India’s manufacturing sector is continuously increasing.
Currently, women constitute 21% of Vedanta Aluminum’s workforce. The company plans to increase it to 35% and then to 50% in the coming years. To meet this goal, the company now comprises more than 50% of its entry-level hires as women, with a view to further increasing the participation of women in technical and leadership positions in the future.
As India’s manufacturing and metals sectors expand to support a more tech-based and resource-intensive future, Vedanta Aluminum’s initiatives aim to ensure that women are not only part of this transformation, but also play a leading role in shaping it.
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