AWARENESS DRIVE

Tata Steel's internal and external communication channels are being regularly updated with relevant information including alerts and query resolution.

The Company is leveraging and collaborating with its extended network including community people, channel partners, vendor partners, volunteers, etc. to spread awareness and sensitise the larger populace on the pandemic through both offline and online communication platforms. The offline initiatives include distribution of right grade masks, sanitisers, hygiene kits, meal and ration packets; setting up of mobile toilets, quarantine wards and isolation cabins; and providing medical attention and care along with counselling for emotional support.

PIVOTAL MEASURES

The suspension of overseas travel and domestic travel -- either by air, train or road has been enforced till further notice.

Work from home has been mandated to all applicable, including expectant mothers, vendors and outsourced employees with 24X7 remote accessibility IT service helpdesk.

Employees have been instructed to refrain from using any mode of public transport and are being encouraged to pool-in their private vehicles for commuting to/from their workplace, wherever feasible. In case this is not feasible/ workable, employees have been extended Work from Home (WFH)/ Special Leave, as applicable. This is also applicable for vendor/ outsourced employees.

Advisory on mask usage and guidelines for Home Quarantine/Isolation have been issued.

Restrictions have been imposed on mass gatherings, events, get-togethers, mass meetings. Creche services across Company locations have been temporarily discontinued.

Tata Steel employees have donated one day’s basic salary in the fight against this pandemic.

MEDICAL STEP UP

To ensure the safety and health of our employees and the community in and around our operating locations, we have set up health infrastructure at all our manufacturing and mining locations across Jharkhand and Odisha. We have also coordinated with the State Governments and local administration to establish COVID Care facilities at all our operating locations to meet the challenges brought on by the pandemic.

The 1,000-bed Tata Main Hospital (TMH) that we operate at Jamshedpur in Jharkhand has 450 oxygen beds and 78 ventilator beds dedicated for COVID Care. In addition, 100 oxygen beds have been provided to two subsidiary company hospitals and a 150-bed COVID Care Centre has been set up for asymptomatic patients and those showing mild symptoms.

In Odisha, the Tata Medica Super Specialty Hospital in Kalinganagar has 120 beds with provision of oxygen and ventilators dedicated to COVID Care, including a 15-bed ICU facility. Along with the Odisha Government and district administration, the NC Autonomous College at Jajpur has been converted into a 200-bed COVID Care Centre. At the Tata Steel BSL plant in Angul, a 200-bed COVID Care facility has been set up with oxygen supply and equipped with oxygen concentrators.

COVID Care facilities have also been set up at locations other than our manufacturing facilities. A total of 631 beds have been set up across our operational areas in Jharia, West Bokaro and Noamundi in Jharkhand as well as Joda and Gopalpur in Odisha.

While there have been collaborative efforts from the Central Government, State Governments and Steel Companies to manage the supply chain of Liquid Oxygen in the country, a proactive initiative has been taken to identify industrial units which produce gaseous oxygen of requisite purity, shortlist those which are closer to cities/dense areas/demand centres and establish temporary Covid care centres with oxygenated beds near that source. This will also help the country prepare for the third wave of this ongoing pandemic. This strategy will enable use of gaseous oxygen near its production source and cut down the requirement of transportation in liquid form to the extent possible.

We have also geared up to establish 1,500-bed COVID hospitals (facilities with oxygenated-beds) at all our manufacturing locations to augment the existing healthcare infrastructure.

HEALTH AND SAFETY MEASURES

The Company has disabled the biometric system-based attendance recording; only RFID based monitoring is continuing. Digital information Kiosks across the Company have been disabled.

Regular sanitisation of all control rooms, cleaning of floors and facilities across offices/ plant areas/ canteens/ cafeterias have been initiated. Hand sanitisers have been placed in all the offices and in conference rooms. All housekeeping staff have been provided with disposable masks and gloves to drive hygiene. All precautions on social distancing and hygiene are being taken for employees entering the work area/canteens.

Sanitisation of all the duty buses is being carried out every day. Disinfection of incoming vehicles & store areas is being done regularly. Rest shed, health check-up and separate meal facility has been created for truck drivers.

COVID-19 Impact Centre has been set-up. Guidelines have been prepared and is being deployed for carrying out operations during and post lockdown period and being deployed across the organization. Necessary training and implementation of inspection checklist for plant start-up/ ramp-up in line with National Disaster Management Authority & Central Pollution Control Board guidelines have been effected.

Daily audits are being conducted by safety professionals to ensure usage of face mask, PPEs & ensuring social distancing at entry gates, shop floors, operation control rooms, buildings & offices, canteens, bus stops, rest rooms etc.

Tata Steel Utilities and Infrastructure Services Limited (TSUISL), a Tata Steel subsidiary, is ensuring regular cleaning, fumigation and sanitisation, garbage collection and disposal in Jamshedpur. The Company has collaborated with over 1200 personnel (sanitisation, garbage collection, water and electrical supply, sweepers, call center agents etc.) who venture out each day to serve the citizens of Jamshedpur.

SECURITY MEASURES

A special security force has been trained to provide protection of people and Company's assets during this crisis.

Security personnel’s living in barracks and otherwise have been trained on hygiene and social distancing. Several sessions on behavioural change and master trainers’ sessions on the same have been conducted for security guards.

CARE FOR COMMUNITY

During the first wave of COVID-19, Tata Steel Foundation (TSF) undertook a 10-point #CombatCovid19 programme, reaching out to more than 10.5 lakh people across the country. The programme, basis a rapid assessment of emerging vulnerability with the onset of the second wave, was recalibrated in early 2021 and has reached over 4.5 lakh people since. The basic objectives remain:

• Enhancing public health systems capacity for communities
• Meeting deficits of material, information and well-being, and,
• Creating economic and other opportunities to address sociological impacts of the pandemic

The primary emphasis in 2021 has been on expeditiously closing gaps in key consumables and equipment available with public health systems that serve communities in remote areas of Jharkhand and Odisha. These include almost 50,000 home isolation kits, 3,78,000 testing kits, 10 ventilators and oxygen concentrators, while more than 6,000 oximeters and 2,000 thermal scanners have been placed with frontline health workers to aid effective early detection.

One of the primary challenges and necessities is to get everyone vaccinated. For this, we have adopted a three-pronged approach to bring communities in and around our operational areas on board. The second wave of the pandemic has reinforced the critical role that vaccines would play in combatting COVID-19. We sensed an increasing need to initiate public awareness around vaccination, mitigate or bust myths arising particularly in vulnerable pockets and communities, as well as enable large-scale vaccination and prior registrations. Our digital campaign, #ApnoKiSuno, is a concerted effort towards effecting behavioural change communication through crowd-sourced videos from Village Heads on critical issues relating to vaccination.

We have been able to secure more than 10,000 registrations through these videos.

We are also helping people register online for COVID-19 vaccination. What began as an initiative in Odisha and Jharkhand has now turned into a nationwide campaign, reaching out to nearly 40,000 people through our #DigitalBridges programme. This has been launched so that communities that are not familiar with the Internet can register for vaccination. Moreover, the process helps reduce crowding in facilities that provide public services, thereby controlling the spread of COVID-19. Along with Tata Main Hospital, Jamshedpur and the State Government, we are facilitating vaccination at seven centres in the city. Our employee volunteering initiative, #FarRishta, has been activated to lend a helping hand at major vaccination centres at Jamshedpur. Till date, approximately 45,000 people have been reached out to across seven States in India through more than 6,000 hours of volunteering.

Some of the other initiatives under the #CombatCovid19 programme to empathise, empower and equip the communities include:

• #ThoughtforFood: Where we worked with the District Administration to provide warm wholesome meals to 50,000 families a day in the worst-affected settlements and slums in Jamshedpur
• #StitchinTime: Where we worked with communities to make 50,000 3-ply cloth masks to reach fraternities like frontline health workers, who are the most exposed to the virus and in need of Personal Protective Equipment
• #CashforWork: Working to increase the average income for 1,000 households by promoting kitchen gardens, linking farm produce to markets, making bags from newspapers and creating art and textile designs
• #HopeSprings: Designing modules with trained psychiatrists and happiness practitioners to pre-emptively address any trauma faced by migrant labour brought upon due to the pandemic
• #FriendinNeed: Creation of a Suicide Prevention Centre with a team of dedicated volunteers, extending emotional support during the pandemic

HR Initiatives

The COVID-19 pandemic has helped us move away from the traditional thinking of productivity being contingent upon fixed hours of work within an office environment and bust many of the myths around remote working. With this, we implemented an Agile Working Model policy in November 2020. Flexible working provided employees the freedom to select work locations of their choice and helped them make decisions pertaining to their personal life to enable better work-life balance.

The new policies have encouraged a trust-based and outcome-driven culture as well as helped attract and retain the best talent available. Having invested ahead of the curve to improve our digital platforms for improved connectivity helped implement the agile model to ensure continuity of work for employees in their respective work-enabled environment, presenting more opportunities for them.

We also set up a 24*7 COVID-19 Helpline for employees across all locations to provide accurate and quick information on COVID-19 issues, including those related to HR and medical. Speak Up, a Coronavirus Guidelines Violation Reporting Helpline, was created and used extensively for reporting any violations of quarantine rules.

As a gesture to the families of employees who have lost their lives to COVID-19, our Social Security Schemes have been revised suitably to cover both frontline employees as well as our shop floor workers.

Liquid Medical Oxygen (LMO)

The second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic saw an increase in demand for oxygen for medical use. We have been collaborating with the Central and State Governments to augment the supply chain of Liquid Medical Oxygen (LMO) in the country. Under guidance from the Steel Ministry, we have been supplying LMO from our Steel Plants at Jamshedpur in Jharkhand and Kalinganagar and Angul in Odisha.

We have cumulatively been able to supply approximately 55,000 tons of LMO till end-May 2021 from our facilities. This is being done in close coordination with the State and Central Governments as per the requirement and allocation. Regular route optimisation exercises combining different modes of transportation like roadways, rail and air transport have resulted in improvement of turnaround time of oxygen tankers and optimisation of the entire LMO supply chain. Along with these, a series of initiatives involving technological process improvements at Oxygen Generating Plants have led to an over eight-fold increase in LMO supplies from our plants from March to May 2021.

While there have been collaborative efforts from the Central Government, State Governments and Steel companies to manage the supply chain of LMO in the country, we have taken a proactive approach to set up large-scale COVID Care facilities with oxygenated beds close to our Steel Plants to enable usage of oxygen near its production source and reduce time taken for transportation of LMO to the extent possible.

HELPLINE NUMBER

A 24X7 COVID-19 Helpline has been created for Tata Steel and TIS group employees across all locations to provide accurate and quick information on COVID-19 Medical/HR/Communication issues.

Employee query link has been created for addressing issued on COVID-19.

Speak Up, a Coronavirus Guidelines Violation Reporting Helpline, has been created and used extensively for reporting violation of quarantine rules by the employees and their families.

ABOVE AND BEYOND

A Behavioural Change Communication video and FAQs video interview of doctors have been developed. These are being used for awareness and training purposes across all locations of Tata Steel.

Tata Steel Foundation has launched Project ‘FarRishta’, a digital volunteering initiative for employees to engage in three areas of counselling, teaching and guiding – while staying at home.

Under the #FarRishta programme, 13,360 women, children and men have been reached out to till date. So far, 1,117 volunteers have made their contributions. FarRishta engagements have helped connect diverse communities and expanded manifold across 17 states and 28 cities.

The Company has developed various E-Learning Modules across various disciplines to keep employees engaged during this period. The modules are also available for employee wards.

Tata Steel introduced e-learning courses, priced at a token amount of Re 1, during the lockdown period and reached out to more than 3 lakh people including students and working professionals. More than 8 lakh e-learning course licenses were issued during the offer period. The e-learning courses ranged from various technical disciplines such as Mechanical, Electrical and Metallurgy to current Industry trends such as Industry 4.0, Total Quality Management, and Machine Learning etc. In addition, a slew of learning sessions through smart class and webinars on pertinent technical and behavioural topics were also made available.

To encourage home composting and home sanitisation, TSUISL has developed a video communication to propagate the green way of living to enable the citizens of Jamshedpur to make use of leftovers, waste and unwanted extras and turn them into fertile soil to boost the productivity of gardens and landscapes. The video can be accessed on YouTube.