The award function organized at Jaipur reckoned 22 awardees in three categories- 8 individual rural women entrepreneurs, 7 Self Help Groups and 7 NGOs, who have been working tirelessly towards socio-economic empowerment of rural & tribal women. As part of campaign “Sakhi”, Hindustan Zinc constituted “Hindustan Zinc ‘SAKHI’ Awards” to motivate and give recognition to such individual women, self-help groups and NGOs.

With a gathering of about 200 people including 125 rural and tribal ‘Sakhi’ women, the occasion was graced by the CM of Rajasthan Vasundhara Raje as the Chief Guest and Anil Agrawal, Chairman of Vedanta Group as the Guest of Honor.

Rajasthan Chief Minister also saw the exhibition of products made my ‘Sakhi’ women group which was followed by screening of ‘Sakhi’ film. During the felicitation, Rajasthan Chief Minister interacted with each awardee asking about their struggles and contribution to the society.

As part of the program, Hindustan Zinc ‘Sakhi’ Calendar 2015 was unveiled by the Hon’ble Chief Minister Rajasthan along with Chairman, Vedanta Group, CEO, Hindustan Zinc.

Chief Minister, Vasundhara Raje spoke about the need for rural women empowerment and urged the industries to come forward and assist in developing online sales platform for the products of these rural & tribal women. She also asked women awardees to take up cleanliness as important part of their day to day activity and should motivate other people to follow the same. She mentioned that SHGs are ‘change agent’ and should be encouraged.

Chairman, Vedanta Group – Anil Agarwal spoke about “Sakhi” campaign and commitment towards bringing more women in the “Sakhi” network to improve their social and economic condition. He also said, “Hon’ble Chief Minister is the biggest “Sakhi” and her inspiration and advice would keep this momentum alive”.

Vedanta Group Company Hindustan Zinc had launched women empowerment campaign ‘SAKHI’ with a focus to provide training and skills by organizing rural and tribal women and organized them into self-help-groups broadly known as Hindustan Zinc ‘SAKHI’ self-help-groups.