~Activities centre around this year’s green mantra – ‘Forests: Nature at Your Service’~

Joining hands with the rest of the world, Tata Steel today observed World Environment Day at Jamshedpur and all its operational locations. The observance was in keeping with the global theme for the present year’s World Environment Day, ‘: Nature at Your Service’.

At Jamshedpur, the day was flagged off with an awareness rally at Jubilee Park by Dr Mrs Himani Pande, Deputy Commissioner, East Singhbhum and chief guest on the occasion. Prominent aspects of the event included:

1. Environment Walk around the Jubilee Park
2. Inauguration of Mobile Ambient Air Quality Monitoring Van
3. Inauguration of Shatabdi Udyan & Tree Plantation
4. Launch of ‘No Plastic’ Campaign through Green Earth Club and distribution of Jute bags
5. elease of booklet “Facts on Environment”

Present on the occasion was Mrs Surekha Nerurkar; Mr Raghunath Pandey, President, Tata Workers’ Union; Mr Anand Sen, Vice President (Total Quality Management and Shared Services), Tata Steel; Mr Manish Sharma, Managing Director, JUSCO; members of Citizen’s Advisory Council, officials and Union office bearers of Tata Steel and JUSCO and others.

At Jamshedpur, three initiatives have been launched and collaborated to ensure that the Company consciously works towards reducing its carbon footprint in a more impressive manner. They are:

Launch of Mobile Monitoring Van
For the first time in Jharkhand, Tata Steel is going to deploy a mobile van for Monitoring of Ambient Air Quality. The van was inaugurated by Mr A M Misra, Vice President (Coke, Sinter & Iron President and Industrial Relations) and Shri Raghunath Pandey, President, Tata Workers’ Union. The van can monitor environment parameters which includes Particulate Matter 10 (PM10) & Particulate Matter 2.5 (PM 2.5), Sulphur Dioxide (SO2), Nitrogen Oxide (NOX), Carbon Monoxide (CO), Carbon Dioxide (CO2), Hydrocarbon (HC) and Weather (relative humidity, wind speed, direction, rainfall, solar radiation, barometric pressure) and will be used by Tata Steel to map the air quality of the area.

Say No to Plastic – Green Earth Club
Plastic has become a menace to modern day’s life by creating environment problem. It is non-bio-degradable, carcinogenic and more often do not find well managed recycling options. Thus it results into multiple heath problems and is a major threat to environment. Green Earth Club – an initiative by Jusco has launched a campaign “Say No to Plastic” by promoting Jute bags which is reusable as well as biodegradable.

Conservation of Forests
In line with this year’s World Environment Day theme declared by UNEP, Tata Steel in collaboration with Forest Department has taken up a special initiative on World Environment Day to conserve forests. Under Corporate Social Responsibility, Tata Steel will provide wood of dead & diseased trees, fallen during storm and trimming process through Forest Department for consumption in Burning Ghats and rural households free of cost. This will help in preventing tree cutting.

Raw Material Divisions of Tata Steel – Jharia , West Bokaro and Noamundi – also joined hands to observe the day. Prabhat Pheri, distribution of about 5000 fruit bearing saplings amongst employees at Jharia, awareness initiatives such as poster, slogan, painting competition for children formed integral part of the Environment Day observances at the three raw material divisions of Tata Steel. At West Bokaro, ‘Green Month’ was inaugurated on 1st June, 2011 as a mark of conserving the environment. The Division targets to plant one lakh saplings this year at its operational area.

It may be worth mentioning that in its greening effort, round the year at Noamundi, more than 5000 trees have been planted at the down slope in mining face of Noamundi Iron Mine in 2010-11 and roughly 15000 saplings have been distributed to villagers to encourage tree conservation.

Tata Steel believes that better environment management leads to superior and long lasting corporate performance. The Tata Steel Main Works and Town Services in Jamshedpur are ISO-14001 certified - the first in India. In its commitment to improve the quality of life in its areas of operations, Tata Steel is striving to bring in world class state-of-the-art technology for upgradation of its Pollution Control measures. In order to maintain the environmental quality of Jamshedpur, Tata Steel is taking a number of initiatives. Some of these are:

• Upgradation of air pollution control equipments to meet the norm much below the regulatory standard.
• Establishment of continuous monitoring system.
• Reduction of carbon foot print.
• Water conservation and rain water harvesting.
• Improvement in solid waste utilization.