Hindalco helps S’pur women earn living

When the Covid-19 pandemic is turning life upside down and leading to widespread job losses, a group of dedicated women in Sambalpur district have insisted on efforts in empowering themselves financially with the support of the Hindalco.

These women from Hirakud have already prepared more than 25,000 facemasks and are still engaged in the work.

“The members of our SHGs here have come forward voluntarily to get associated in this fight against Covid-19 and started stitching cotton face masks. The tailoring training provided to them has been fruitfully utilised through this venture,” said RK Gupta, Head of Hindalco. There are 56 such groups at work involving more than 690 women. Many of these groups are already part of different income generation programmes (IGPs).

Other groups are engaged in cooking food for inmates of institutional quarantine centres run by the district administration.

Till date, the Hindalco has provided around 35,500 facemasks, 1,750 sanitisers, 1,400 litres of hand wash liquids, around 4,100 soaps to the people in the community. The company has sprayed 52 litres of Sodium Hypocholride and 2,325 kg of DDT/bleaching powder to make villagers infection-free, added Gupta.