Essar Steel India has been recognised for Safety leadership for the second year in a row by the World Steel Association, a statement of the company informed here on Friday.
Declaring the final scoring of the 31 submissions received by the World Steel Safety Excellence Recognition Programme 2015, Arne Haferkorn, Chairman of the Judging Panel said, “I am delighted to announce that Essar Steel India’s submission, ‘Implementation of Process Safety Management (PSM)’, has been recognised in the Safety leadership category.”
Madhu Vuppuluri, CEO of Essar Steel Minnesota, received the award on behalf of Essar Steel India. Essar Steel India is the only Indian company in recent times to have received this recognition for two consecutive years. Its PSM culture score evaluated through a third-party audit improved from 55 percent in 2010 to 92 percent in 2014.
The PSM project at Essar Steel India incorporated several safety initiatives and aimed at involving all employees and contractors. The initiatives include an online portal, campaigns, screening of video films and a Safety Rally that brought together 3,500 employees. Dilip Oommen, CEO & MD, Essar Steel India, said, “We are happy to be recognised for our safety practices. We follow PSM rigorously. It is part of our standard operating procedure in all our activities. It is propagated through extensive employee engagement, and awareness and training programmes.”
Essar Steel’s safety management system has won several accolades this year, including the Ispat Suraksha Puraskar awarded by the Joint Committee on Safety, Health & Environment in Steel Industries (JCSSI), the Manufacturing Today Excellence in Safety Award 2014 - large Enterprises, the Safety Innovation Award 2014 from The Institution of Engineers (India), and the Golden Peacock Award for Occupational Health & Safety.