A big Odisha shame: Vedanta abandons 500 Binnos

There is no escaping Binno. There she is, on every TV channel, her infectious smile in constant rotation, creating happiness - and an image makeover - for Vedanta. As the Business Standard noted earlier this month, the timing of the campaign is no coincidence:

“In the recent past, Vedanta clearly has been in a fix, fighting a negative perception battle which has been eroding its corporate brand equity. As the debate over excessive mining versus human displacement and environmental impact and its co-relation to internal security gathered political hues, Vedanta got sucked into it and in the process completely polarized civil society, institutional investors and industry.”

That the ‘Creating Happiness’ campaign has become controversial is hardly surprising. Image makeovers rarely go unchallenged, especially not when engineered by a global company widely criticised for its mining practices. A Rajasthani kid, however cute, is not going to make it all go away. But a new Tehelka story strikes at the very heart of this PR blitz, taking aim at Vedanta’s claim that it cares oh-so-deeply about children. [We recommend you check it out here]

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In his article, Jay Mazoomdar tells the story of 500 schoolchildren in Odisha who have been summarily abandoned by Vedanta. The story begins in June 2006, when Vedanta Resources Ltd requested 15,000 acres from the Odisha government to set up a university near Puri. The government signed an MOU with Vedanta Foundation. Part of this deal was a land-for-education swap.

[caption id=“attachment_226792” align=“alignleft” width=“380” caption=“Screengrab from YouTube video of Vedanta’s Creating Happiness campaign.”]  [/caption]

“The company took 6,000 acres of agricultural land from us. We were told that our children would get good education for free. We were also promised quality healthcare and jobs. It even promised to build good schools in our villages. We were happy,” a farmer tells Tehelka. VUP then signed a 30-year MOU with the prestigious DAV school to educate 500 kids from these poor families up to Class X. Not only would the kids get a free education, but also transportation, uniforms, textbooks, i.e. the works:

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“We admitted around 500 students by 2010-11,” says DAV Schools regional director Himansu Mohanty. “The company was paying for their fees, textbooks, uniforms, meals, etc. They also bought four buses and paid the running cost. Since many of these students were first-generation learners, they were not ready for English medium. So we created an Odia section within our premises where 350 of them were studying. Vedanta promised us three acres and a 10,000 sq ft building for this Odia medium school by 2012.”

But by 2010, the university deal had fallen apart (for a number of reasons, including a High Court judgement, listed in the article). And so did the bright future promised to these kids. Vedanta pulled the funding, leaving them high and dry. It seems Vedanta only wants to help children when it can help itself. Most damning part of the story comes at the very end: “Contacted by Tehelka, Vedanta’s Raj Sekhar denied that the MNC had ‘anything to do with DAV in Puri’ before promising to ‘get back after checking the facts.’ But of course, he did not, not in the middle of an ad blitz.”

It’s one more piece of bad news generated in what was supposed to an ambitious feel-good campaign. Last week, the Creating Happiness initiative lost its two celebrity judges : filmmaker Shyam Benegal and actress Gul Panag, who were slated to judge 38 documentaries on other, real-life Binnos from around the country.

Guess all the Binnos in the world cannot put this Humpty-Dumpty together again.