HISTORY OF SCHOOL

The Aditya Birla Public School (ABPS), Rayagada, situated in the lush green picturesque valley of Southern Odisha is a school set up to fulfil the dream of the people of this belt. The Aditya Birla Public School, Rayagada started its journey on the 1st July, 2011 under the aegis of Utkal Alumina International Ltd. The school was set up by Mr. Kumar Mangalam Birla, Chairman, Aditya Birla Group to fulfill the need for quality education for the children of Utkal Alumina employees and of the surrounding locality.

The School is located at Osapada, which is about 52 Kms from Rayagada- the Administrative Headquarters of Rayagada District, Odisha. Rayagada is nearly 450 km from Bhubaneswar by road. It is connected by Rail to Bhubaneswar, Raipur, Visakhapatnam, Koraput, Kolkata, Chennai, Delhi, and Hyderabad. The nearest airport is Vishakhapatnam airport, 250 km from Osapada. The Aditya Birla Public School is an English medium co-educational Senior Secondary (10+2) School affiliated to the Central Board of Secondary Education, New Delhi. As of date, the school has 880 students.

Brief Note On Utkal Alumina

M/s. Utkal Alumina International Limited was incorporated in 1993 as a JV between Alcan, Norsk Hydro, Tatas & Indal to setup an Alumina Plant at Doraguda, Rayagada district of Odisha. However, due to a number of local issues and disturbances, the project did not see the light of the day for a long time. The project was relaunched for execution when Utkal Alumina International Limited became a 100 % subsidiary of HINDALCO Industries Ltd. (a flagship company of Aditya Birla Group) in 2005. It is one of the most prestigious projects for the Aditya Birla Group and has been executed with meticulous care taking into account incorporation of state of art technology, the world class standards for energy and environment management and also launching a sustainable developmental model that addresses the people issues, be it the land-losers, project affected persons and the local populace at large.

The scope of Utkal project comprises 1.5 million TPA Alumina Refinery, 3×30 MW Cogeneration Power plant, captive bauxite mines at Baphlimali which transports bauxite to alumina through a 18.5 km long distance conveyer belt, a railway siding with lead line of 11 km. long, a water intake facility from San river from a distance of 14 km. and a dedicated township to house all personnel.

The Technology for the alumina refinery has been procured from Rio-Tinto Alcan, an international leader in the field and the plant is engineered by Uhde India Limited for the refinery side, Fichtner for the Cogeneration Power Plant and M N Dastur for the Mines facility. Reputed national and international suppliers and contractors were deployed for this mega project which had a capital outlay of more than Rs.7500 crores. The refinery is configured in two streams of equal capacity (each 50%) and the first stream was made ready and commissioned on 01 Dec 2013 while the second was commissioned on 01 May 2014.

The plant had one of the fastest production ramp-up rates anywhere in the world for the first year of operation when it produced close to 1 million MTPA alumina, the quality of which was adjudged as world-class.

In the last four years, Utkal Alumina made relentless efforts in reaching out to the people in the vicinity through a series of sustainable CSR initiatives in the areas of Education, Health Care, Livelihood development, Village infrastructure and Socio Cultural development. Utkal Alumina has thus, to a great extent, transformed the lives of entire cross section of village communities in the periphery & enhanced their quality of life. For setting up the plant and auxiliaries, 2152 acres of land was acquired by the Government and leased out to Utkal Alumina. All the 183 Displaced Persons (DPs) along with families were rehabilitated and re-located to two separate R & R Colonies in pucca houses equipped with modern amenities.

To create Employment opportunities to locals, Company has set up ITI at Kashipur and provided Employability Training to as many as 335 students from amongst the displaced and project affected families. Similarly, Company also provided training to another 211 wards from the DP / PAP families in the Semi-skilled category at a reputed Vocational Training Institute. All these Skilled and Semi-skilled trainees have been provided employment in the Company. Today, Utkal Alumina takes pride in saying that it has created employment opportunities to as many as 2800 persons in their Plant & Mines, an overwhelming majority of them are locals. Besides, Company offered opportunities to close to 400 local persons for self-employment from local community.