Essar companies are regular standees at the prestigious Greentech Awards for Safety: In 2012, six Essar companies were honored — Essar Power, the Essar Steel Hazira, Pune and Visakhapatnam plants, Essar Bulk Terminals, Hazira, and Essar Heavy Engineering Services.
Equally, they have been frequently recognized by the Government of India and various state governments for their excellence in safety practices. Essar Projects won the prestigious National Safety Council of India (NSCI) Shreshtha Suraksha Puraskar for its occupational health and safety management systems and procedures and for its safely record in executing the Essar plate mill project at Hazira. The Essar Oil Vadinar refinery has received National Safety Awards from the Government of India Ministry of Labour & Employment for three consecutive years ending 2010. Essar Projects has been honored by the Odisha as well as the Gujarat state governments — with the Kalinga Safety Award in 2011 and the Gujarat Safety Council & Directorate of Industrial Safety and Health certificate of honor in 2013, respectively — for its safety records in various projects.
Expert bodies have held up the best safety practices at Essar companies as examples. Essar Shipping Ltd (ESL) was named ‘Bulk Operator of the Year’ at the annual Seatrade Middle East & Indian Subcontinent Awards in December 2012, at the Dubai Maritime Week. Known as the ‘Oscars’ of the maritime world, the entries were judged by a 12-member panel of international judges, led by Koji Sekimizu, Secretary General, International Maritime Organization (IMO).
The Essar Projects (EPL) Heavy Engineering Services (EHES), Hazira, won the British Safety Council (BSC) International Safety Award 2013; and in May 2012, the Essar Oil Vadinar Terminal was honored with a Gold Award at the coveted RoSPA (Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents) Occupational Health and Safety Awards 2012, for its approach to prevention of accidents and ill health,
Closer home, Essar Bulk Terminal Ltd (EBTL), Hazira, was named the ‘Best Port / Terminal of the Year – Health and Safety’, at the Gujarat Junction 2012 awards by Exim India, publisher of the 'Daily Shipping Times'; the Essar Steel Hazira facility was recognized for excellence in safety in the Manufacturing Today Awards, 2012, by experts associated with the reputed magazine, ‘Manufacturing Today’; the Hazira steel plant also won four awards at the prestigious ISPAT Suraksha Puraskar 2012; and the Essar Oil Vadinar refinery was recognized by the Indian Chemical Council (ICC), the apex national body representing the chemical industry in India, for its outstanding achievement in safety.
The Essar ‘Safety Anthem’ says: “There’s life where there’s protection ….” Effective because it makes for easy recall, it’s this very approach to popularizing best safety practices that has made ‘Essar’ one of the most easily recognized names in the context of industrial safety, nationally and worldwide.
