Vedanta Ties up With NRHM to Fight Sickle Cell Anaemia in Odisha

Source: Business Line

Mumbai, March 29: The National Rural Health Mission that has endeavoured to fight sickle cell anaemia on a war-footing, especially in western Odisha, got a fillip by teaming up with Vedanta Aluminium and its CSR (corporate social responsibility) activities.

Sickle cell anaemia is an inherited blood disorder characterised primarily by chronic anaemia and periodic episodes of pain leading to organ damage.

According to the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), India has around l lakh sickle cell disease patients, with about 8,000 new sickle cell anaemia patients born each year in the country.

Though ICMR has set up prenatal diagnostic facilities across Maharashtra, Gujarat, West Bengal, Karnataka and Punjab, the National Rural Health Mission (NRHM) had a strategic initiative to focus on western Odisha.

This was borne by the fact that more than 5 lakh people in Odisha are affected by the disease, according to the State Health Department, of which nearly 80 per cent are found in 13 western Odisha districts.

Tie-up

The V.S.S. Medical College in Burla, which has a sickle cell clinic that is sponsored by NRHM, recently teamed up with the Vedanta Hospital at Lanjigarh in Odisha’s Kalahandi district, to conduct a sickle cell screening camp.

Around 197 people turned up for the screening from the nearby 47 villages of Lanjigarh, like Basantpada, Jagannathpur, Jodabandh, Biswanathpur and Balabhadrapur.

Mukesh Kumar, COO, Vedanta Aluminium, Lanjigarh, noted that a lot of people are affected by sickle cell anaemia in the Lanjigarh area. The screening camp aimed at getting them free treatment through the NRHM.

Prior to the camp, the corporate social responsibility (CSR) team of Vedanta Aluminium, Lanjigarh, educated villagers on sickle cell anaemia in order to get more people to come for the screening.

Incidentally, central institutes such as AIIMS, the Jawaharlal Institute of Postgraduate Medical Education at Puducherry, the Postgraduate Institute of Medical Education and Research at Chandigarh and the Ram Manohar Lohia Hospital at Delhi have facilities for the diagnosis and treatment of the disease.

VEDANTA - SMILE TRAIN CLEFT LIP & PALATE SURGERY PROGRAMME KICKS OFF AT LANJIGARH

A joint project undertaken by Vedanta Hospital, Lanjigarh and the Smile Train, USA under the banner of ‘Vedanta Smile Train Cleft Lip & Palate Surgery Programme’ was kicked off at Lanjigarh on 10th March 2013. Vedanta Hospital has been performing these surgeries free of cost since the last one year and it is the only ‘Smile Train Centre’ in entire Western Odisha region.

Smile Train is a US based international organisation which conducts Free Cleft Lip and Palate Surgeries worldwide and has carried out more than 80,000 surgeries till date. Dr. Ram Anupam Tripathy (Maxcilo Facial Surgeon), Dr. Ritesh Ray Anaesthetist), Dr. Chinky Gupta (Dental Surgeon) and Dr. Manoj Sahu (General Surgeon) of Nirmala Kruti Bikash Trust (NKBT) – who manage the Vedanta Hospital – conducted nine surgeries at Vedanta Hospital on 10th March 2013.

Speaking on the occasion, Dr. Mukesh Kumar – President & COO, VAL, said “Vedanta, in collaboration with the Smile Train, will leave no stone unturned to treat each and every such cases in Kalahandi, Bolangir, Rayagada and Koraput region. To achieve the objective, Vedanta is seeking support of all the district administration to identify such cases with cleft lip and palate.”

A tri-partite agreement between Vedanta Lanjigarh, NKBT and Smile Train aims to provide a child born with a cleft the same opportunities in life as a child born without a cleft. Mr Satish Kalra, Regional Director, South Asia – Smile Train, said, “Odisha has been priority State for Smile Train in India. Since the safety of the Cleft patient is our utmost priority, we were not able to penetrate interiors of Orissa due to lack of good surgery facilities in the region. With Smile Train’s association with Vedanta Hospital, we would provide free cleft surgeries to the cleft patient in Kalahandi and neighbouring districts.

Millions of children in the world and many in India suffer from unrepaired clefts. Most cannot eat or speak properly; they face difficult lives filled with shame, isolation and pain. “In India over 35,000 children are born every year with clefts and over 50% of them remain untreated for lack of awareness on corrective surgeries available for this facial deformity and poor economic background. Clefts in India are as much a social and economic problem as they are medical, leading to physical and psychological problems for patients,” said Dr. Ram Anupam Tripathy who has successfully conducted many such surgeries in the past.

For more information please visit:

Vedanta Aluminium Limited: http://www.vedantaaluminium.com/

Smile Train: http://www.smiletrain.org/

Parents Meet DAV Vedanta School Management for Sustainable Function

Two months after the closure of the Vedanta Alumina refinery at Lanjigarh the community living around the peripheral areas interacted with the management of the DAV Vedanta International School and requested to sustain the only English Medium School in the region which provides quality education to their ward and assured full support of the entire community for the resumption of the operations soon.

Parents more than 500 in numbers from Lanjigarh, Biswanathpur, Ambodala, Muniguda and other nearby villages came to the Parent-Teacher meet, convened by the Principal of the school Mrs. Shukla Chakrobarty, where Management Committee of the School was present. President & COO – Vedanta Aluminium Limited (VAL), Lanjigarh and Chairman of the Management Committee, Dr. Mukesh Kumar was present along with other members of the School Management Committee.

The parents informed the Committee their concern arises due to temporary closure of the plant as this may impact the function of the school. The management committee Chairman, Dr. Mukesh Kumar reiterated that this plant have been set up with the cooperation and support of the people and if people want Vedanta to continue, there is no threat and further development of the area shall be ensured by taking up the cause jointly so that such threat is not arises in future. Mrs. Shukla Chakrobarty informed the parents that nearly Rs. 4000-Rs. 5000 per children per calendar month is born by Vedanta and without such support, functioning of the school is not possible.

Radha Ratha, a resident of Lanjigarh, said, “Our children are fortunate that Vedanta is bearing all the cost for the education in this school. The quality of the education is incomparable. We want the plant to stay in our region so that community can be benefitted by more developmental activities of the company.” Many parents voiced their opinion and were thankful to VAL for its continuous support to school in such a tribal dominated place even after the crisis being faced by the company. Along with Mr. Rath many other parents such as Mohan Sahu, Gagan Sahu, Kamini Rai expressed their satisfaction with the progress & assured full support to the company and hoped that the plant shall stay forever.

Dr. Mukesh reiterated that the International school will continue to provide quality education the children in the locality. “This year onwards class XI and XII will be added consequently a biology lab has also been facilitated. A degree science college is also on the pipe line. Vedanta will take all possible steps to provide quality education to the inhabitants of Lanjigarh and its nearby areas as per Vedanta’s vision of making Kalahandi and especially Lanjigarh a developed area known for education, Health & Industrial Development.”

Author: Sweta Upadhyaya

Provide us livelihood, or run Vedanta refinery: Workers demand at Lanjigarh

Hundreds of local people working at the alumina refinery of Vedanta Aluminium Limited (VAL) came to the streets of Lanjigarh on January 8, 2013 after a threat to their livelihood as a result of closure of the refinery. They appealed to the State and the Central Government to provide them alternate source of livelihood which is dangling in danger after the closure of Vedanta’s refinery at Lanjigarh in Kalahandi district of Odisha.

“VAL has stopped production and if this situation continues, thousands of people working inside the plant will be jobless. Who will come to our rescue then? We request the state and central govt. to provide us alternate source of livelihood or alternate raw material source to the company to run the refinery,” said Sribaschha Tandi a local contractor engaged in the plant.

Local leaders including Sridhara Pesnia, Chandra Pesnia, Subas Agarwal, Rajendra Singhdeo of Lanjigarh came forward in support of the workers and demanded the govt. to take an immediate action. “The govt. should consider providing alternate source of bauxite to the plant. Or, we will go to the Odisha Assembly and Parliament in Delhi to save the only industry in our region which is providing livelihood to more than 10,000 people of Kalahandi,” said Sridhara Pesnia, President - Lanjigarh Anchalika Vikash Parishad.

The locals also voiced their concern over the anti-industry attitude of NGOs & civil society organisations which have been opposing Vedanta in Kalahandi, without any concern for the human misery that will result due to the closure.

Vedanta has closed its one million tonne alumina refinery based at Lanjigarh since December 5, 2012 due to shortage of bauxite which is the raw material to produce alumina.