Breaking Barriers, Building Futures: Vedanta’s Approach to Empowering Women

At Vedanta, the commitment to women empowerment is at the core of how the company defines inclusive growth. Across India, where financial dependence continues to limit women’s agency, Vedanta is investing in long-term, ground-up change.

From remote villages in Rajasthan to underserved regions in Odisha and Chhattisgarh, the company runs women-centric programmes that don’t just train or support, they enable women to participate fully in the economy.

For Vedanta, empowering women is embedded in the company’s ESG strategy, with clear governance through social performance steering committees at each site and oversight at the board level. It cuts across the company, from metals and manufacturing to power and oil & gas, with each business unit accountable for creating a measurable social impact. The result is not just scattered interventions, but a structured, system- wide push to shift the odds for women.

Nand Ghar

Led by the Anil Agarwal Foundation, Nand Ghar is Vedanta’s flagship social impact initiative. Apart from providing early childhood education, and access to healthcare and nutrition, Nand Ghar also empowers women. In the latter half of each day, these centres transform into skill-training spaces: teaching tailoring, digital literacy, handicrafts and more to women. This dual-use design helps eliminate a major barrier to economic participation: lack of childcare. It’s a model that acknowledges the daily trade-offs rural women face and offers a way around them.

But Nand Ghar is just one node in a much wider ecosystem of women-focused programmes operating across Vedanta.

Sakhi, Subhalaxmi, and the Rise of Women Entrepreneurs

At Vedanta Aluminium, the Subhalaxmi Co-operative in Jharsuguda, Odisha, supports nearly 5,000 women across more than 400 self-sustained and self-managed self-help groups (SHGs) with access to microfinance, group savings, and enterprise training. Whether it's tailoring or setting up kirana shops, the goal is to convert skill into income and collective confidence.

The Sakhi programme in Odisha’s Lanjigarh also supports women by facilitating training and market linkages for their products. In 2016, the project led to the formation of the Shaktimayee Foundation. Sakhi initiatives include structured training, seed funding support, and even digital commerce exposure, enabling local women to expand beyond seasonal or subsistence work.

Sakhi and Microenterprises at Hindustan Zinc

Hindustan Zinc’s Sakhi programme in Rajasthan and Uttarakhand aims to empower women economically and socially by fostering financial independence through sustainable grassroots institutions like federations, village organisations, Self-Help Groups (SHG), Micro Enterprises, and FPOs. The project offers leadership platforms and membership to rural women, promoting entrepreneurship and ownership through brands such as ‘Upaya’ for apparel, ‘Daichi’ for food products, and ‘Gauam’ for dairy items. The model includes collective procurement, branding support, and market access, proving that even in traditionally male-dominated geographies, women can drive economic momentum. The initiative has provided over ₹1,000 Mn in credit, generating ₹100 Mn in interest for community growth.

Project Unnati, Jivika and TARA: Sector-Specific Upskilling

In Chhattisgarh, BALCO’s Project Unnati is helping women achieve socio-economic progress by building capacity and enabling self-reliant income-generating activities. Women have been taught product development and sales & marketing strategies through 15 exposure visits with their products displayed at IIT BHU, State Mining Minister’s Conference, and Vedanta Dilli Haat Cultural Festival.

Similarly, Project Jivika at ESL Steel Limited supports women in with livelihood diversification training, focussing on various targetted interventions such as textile trade, mushroom cultivation, phenyl production, and bamboo crafts. Over a span of 3 years, this ambitious project has set a target of empowering 200 self-help groups (SHG) and positively impacting the lives of 2,000 women.

TSPL Action for Rural Ajeevika, or Project TARA by Vedanta Power, in collaboration with the Punjab State Rural Livelihood Mission (PSRLM), is dedicated to transforming the lives of over 2,100 rural women from 20 villages. It focusses on empowering women through comprehensive skill development, financial literacy, and access to vital resources to establish and sustain their businesses.

Through these diverse initiatives, Vedanta is not only supporting women to learn skills or start enterprises, but also dismantling systemic barriers, creating pathways to leadership, and embedding gender equity into the heart of economic progress.

The ambition is clear: move beyond representation to transformation. When women gain access to tools, training, and trust, they don’t just earn, they lead. And when they lead, entire communities follow.