~ 55 tonnes of waste removed from River Ganga over the last four weeks ~

~ The team reached out to around 60,000 students and local community people ~

Mission Gange, a unique drive to clean our pious river Ganga and spread awareness about cleanliness in public and private places in the country, drew to a close today after removing 55 tonnes of waste from the Ganga over the last four weeks.

The mission, a joint initiative of Tata Steel Adventure Foundation (TSAF) and National Mission for Clean Ganga (NMCG) saw massive public participation of around 60,000 students and local community members from eight locations and three states.

The 40-member team of Mission Gange that had started this unique campaign from Haridwar on October 5, covered 1500 kms of the Ganga flowing through three states in the country and finished the final leg in Patna today, where the team was received by Aditya Prakash, DDC Patna. In Patna, the team removed 2 tonnes of waste and reached out to 3,000 students and 5,000 local community people to raise awareness about the Government of India’s two major cleanliness mission: Namami Gange (Clean Ganga) and Swachh Bharat Abhiyan (Clean India).

Mission Gange team leader, Chief of TSAF and India’s first woman to scale Mt Everest, Ms. Bachendri Pal calling the mission a huge success and thanking all the participants for their unstinting support said, “While we were quite aware of the challenges of this campaign, we underestimated the support we ended up receiving at each of the eight stops enroute. We are overwhelmed by the response. Many in our team have had experience of climbing Mt. Everest and they will tell you that cleaning the Ganges is as challenging, if not more.” Seven of the Mission Gange’s 40-member team have touched the summit of Mt. Everest.

Earlier this month, the team had camped at Haridwar, Bijnor, Farrukhabad, Kanpur, Prayagraj, Varanasi and Buxar before ending the campaign in Patna today.

Prior to the expedition kickoff, Mission Gange team met and interacted with the Hon’ble Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi on October 4, 2018 in New Delhi.

Congratulating the team Mr. T. V. Narendran, CEO & MD, Tata Steel said, "Tata Steel, as a responsible corporate promotes several outreach programmes for the benefit of the community. We are delighted with the successful completion of the Mission Gange and the scale of awareness on cleanliness and respect for the environment it has been able to accomplish across the route it traversed. I congratulate Ms. Bachendri Pal, her team and thank all the Government establishments who have contributed to make the mission a success."

Congratulating the team and all the participants on the success of the mission, Mr. Sunil Bhaskaran, Vice President, Corporate Services, Tata Steel and Chairman, TSAF said, “We are very proud of the team led by Ms. Bachendri Pal for the successful completion of Mission Gange. The success of this mission is reflected in the tremendous participation and the engagement of the community and stakeholders over the last one month across the route of the mission. The success of Mission Gange reaffirms our faith in collaboration with the Government bodies to promote awareness around issues of importance for the community and improvement in the quality of life. I would like to thank all stakeholders who have contributed to the success of this mission.”

TSAF has brought together a diverse and industrious team of 40 individuals (20 women and 20 men) including eight mountaineers (Bachendri Pal, Premlata Agarwal, Hemant Gupta, R S Pal, Chetna Sahoo, Binita Soren, Poonam Rana, Swarnlata Dalai), who have summited Mt. Everest, and 26 Tata Steel employees. Besides, professionals from backgrounds as diverse as engineering, environmentalists, science etc. were part of the expedition team that is prepared to meet all the challenges that they may encounter during the expedition.

About Tata Steel Adventure Foundation (TSAF)
Founded by legendary mountaineer Ms. Bachendri Pal, first Indian woman to climb Mt Everest on May 23, 1984, Tata Steel Adventure Foundation is an outbound leadership institute which through its wide range of activities aims at developing able leaders for the future through identification of their limits of mental and physical endurance. It allows people from all walks of life and all ages to choose their own metaphor for self-discovery. True to its philosophy of experimental learning, TSAF believes that no classroom is better than nature and no teacher is better than your own will.

In addition to the TSAF outbound leadership program, several other courses are conducted by TSAF like horse riding, parasailing, water sports, sports climbing, rock climbing, and many others. Each course is a certification course thereby giving a sense of fulfillment and achievement at the end of it.

About Tata Steel
Tata Steel Group is among the top global steel companies with an annual crude steel capacity of 27.5 million tonnes per annum (MTPA) as on March 31, 2018. It is one of the world's most geographically-diversified steel producers, with operations in 26 countries and a commercial presence in over 50 countries. The Group recorded a consolidated turnover of US $20.41 billion (INR 133,016 crore) in FY18. Tata Steel Group is spread across five continents with an employee base of over 65,000. Tata Steel retained Industry Leader position in FY18 and ranked second overall in the DJSI assessment, 2017. The Company has been recognised as the Climate Disclosure Leader in ‘Steel category’ by CDP (2017). Besides being a member of the World Steel Climate Action Programme, Tata Steel was felicitated with several awards including the Prime Minister’s Trophy for the best performing integrated steel plant for 2014-15 and 2015-16, Best Risk Management by CNBC TV18 (2018) and ‘Corporate Strategy Award’ by Mint (2018). The Company also received the ‘Most Ethical Company’ award from Ethisphere Institute for the sixth time (2018), Steel Sustainability Champions (2017) by the World Steel Association, Dun & Bradstreet Corporate Awards (2017 & 2018), Golden Peacock HR Excellence Award by Institute of Directors (2017) as well as 'Asia's Best Integrated Report' award by the Asia Sustainability Reporting Awards (2017), among several others.

Disclaimer
Statements in this press release describing the Company’s performance may be “forward looking statements” within the meaning of applicable securities laws and regulations. Actual results may differ materially from those directly or indirectly expressed, inferred or implied. Important factors that could make a difference to the Company’s operations include, among others, economic conditions affecting demand/ supply and price conditions in the domestic and overseas markets in which the Company operates, changes in or due to the environment, Government regulations, laws, statutes, judicial pronouncements and/ or other incidental factors.