Message from the Chairman
Sustainable Mining
for Tomorrow
Dear Stakeholders,
This is our first ever integrated report wherein we have presented a holistic view of our value creation that goes beyond financials to equally important metrics of environment, social, governance and nation building. Through a discourse on our strategy, performance, resources and relationships, governance and risks and opportunities, we have provided insights into our ability to create value for all our stakeholders. I hope you find our first integrated report relevant, transparent and engaging.
It has been more than a year since I joined your Board as Chairman, and I feel privileged to lead one of the world’s largest and India’s only integrated producer of zinc, lead and silver. At the outset, I would like to assure you that Hindustan Zinc continues to have high growth prospects and is confidently overcoming short-term challenges, including the one posed by the COVID-19 pandemic. In the process, we will emerge stronger and generate sustainable value for all our stakeholders.
We are all living through a difficult time and the humanitarian crisis created by the COVID-19 pandemic is unprecedented in our living memory, leaving no one untouched. As a responsible corporate citizen, we have been at the forefront in supporting our communities to ensure their livelihood, health and safety. Our Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) team has established on-ground preparedness with emphasis on extensive delivery of food, sanitation and health services. I applaud the commitment of our employees in these challenging times who have worked voluntarily to supply dry ration and ready-to-eat meals to vulnerable sections of society, including daily wage earners.
We halted all our operations when the nationwide lockdown was announced in March, and gradually recommenced in April while maintaining utmost safety of our people and assets. We formed a COVID-19 war room to ensure safe re-start and have implemented extensive protocols to safeguard all our employees, including our contractors at workplace as well as in residential colonies. I am happy to report that we ramped up our operations to normal levels in the month of May.
During the reporting period, Hindustan Zinc has performed well on all operational, financial and non-financial aspects, despite the operational shutdown to combat the COVID-19 pandemic. Under the able guidance of our CEO and other members of the leadership team, we are well positioned to grow sustainably with a sharp focus on safety, exploration, digitalisation and data-driven decision-making.
We have an attractive, world-class portfolio of assets with two of our mines ranking among the top 3 largest underground zinc-lead mines globally.
We strengthened our position as an industry leader by completing all our major mining expansion projects for 1.2 mn MT per annum. We are now setting up Hindustan Zinc for the next phase of growth in a phased manner over the coming years through focused exploration, smart technology interventions and disciplined execution of expansion projects.
Over the last several years, we have transformed into a modern underground mining company with an emphasis on sustainable operations. Continuing this transformation, we have successfully launched three major digitisation projects during the year to generate insights and actions for enhancing efficiency, productivity and safety of our operations.
Cost leadership has always been one of our core focus areas. Our enviable position among the world’s lowest cost producers continues to be a competitive edge that enables industry-leading returns in any market scenario. To this end, we are optimising costs by leveraging best-in-class technologies and implementation of prudent strategies that span the entire operational canvas.
I am deeply saddened to report two fatalities during the year, which is unacceptable. While we have carried out detailed investigations and horizontally deployed learnings from these incidences to prevent recurrence, we are implementing a cultural shift by making safety central to our operations to achieve zero harm to our people. The increase in injury frequency rate to 1.38 during the year is being addressed through smart use of technology, automation and innovation to reduce risks related to man-machine interactions and ensure safe underground mining operations.
Caring for our communities is our core value and we spent `131.7 Crore on our CSR programmes during the year while also extending support to the PM CARES Fund in April 2020. To deepen our engagement with communities, we are designing programmes based on the needs and learnings from the Impact Assessment study conducted in FY 2018-19.
Moreover, I am happy to say that we have delivered encouraging results in our long-term projects in education and women empowerment, which matured during the year. I am very enthused by the success of our programmes in skill development of local youth to improve their employability. I expect our new initiatives in health services and water management will gain traction in the coming years, significantly improving the quality of life of our communities.
Sustainability has always been a high priority for us. Our continued emphasis on ESG, safety and occupational health is visible in everything that we do. During the year, we received significant honours that display the ESG efforts of the Company over the last several years. Hindustan Zinc continued its coveted position in the Dow Jones Sustainability Index in 2019 and is honored to be at first position within Sustainability in Asia Pacific and fifth position among global metal and mining companies. I am also proud to share that Hindustan Zinc reaffirmed its membership in both the FTSE4Good Index series and the S&P Sustainability Yearbook for the third consecutive year.
I am happy to share with you that Hindustan Zinc has been declared as a ‘Disclosure Champion’ in FTI Asia Disclosure Index 2019 with a perfect score of 10 and is among the top 23 companies in Asia and top 5 companies in India.
Before I conclude, I am grateful to all members of the Board, the leadership team and all our stakeholders for being a part of our growth story. I must reiterate the commitment of your Board and CEO to create sustainable value through our leading Indian mining enterprise.
Sincerely,
Kiran Agarwal