Jindal Steel wins the Worldsteel 2026 Steelie Award for Excellence in People (Img: Dynamite News)
New Delhi: Jindal Steel Limited has won the World Steel Association’s (Worldsteel) 2026 Steelie Award for Excellence in People for its safety initiative, Dakshata Engineering Safety: One Duty Position at a Time. The award was announced at the 17th Steelie Awards in New Delhi on October 12, 2026.
The recognition highlights Jindal Steel’s approach to improving workplace safety by assessing employees’ practical skills, safety knowledge and emergency preparedness according to their specific job responsibilities.
The company was selected by an independent expert panel from a list of finalists that included China Baowu, InfraBuild, Tata Steel and USIMINAS.
The Dakshata programme addresses a key challenge in steel manufacturing: ensuring that employees are not only trained in safety procedures but can also demonstrate the skills required to handle workplace risks.
The initiative identifies the safety knowledge, practical capabilities and behaviours needed for individual duty positions. It then assesses employees, identifies skill gaps, provides targeted training and reassesses their proficiency. The findings also help guide employee deployment and supervision.
According to Jindal Steel, Dakshata’s Safety Lens has covered more than 27,100 executives and non-executives across six locations.
The first large-scale assessment of 11,639 non-executive employees recorded an average safety knowledge score of 0.81, compared with a practical skills score of 0.71. The results highlighted the gap between understanding safety procedures and applying them in real-world situations.
The company also reported conducting 16,539 new-hire assessments and delivering 372 safety and health, safety and environment (HSE) programmes, achieving a 96 per cent completion rate through 69 certified trainers.
Jindal Steel said its Raipur Machinery Division combines employee capability assessments with AI-enabled workplace observations, digital risk analytics, access controls, practical learning and engineering-based risk reduction.
During the financial year 2025–26, the division recorded 17,752 safety observations and eliminated or mechanised 379 high-risk tasks.
The site also improved emergency response time by 15 per cent to 5.25 minutes and achieved a Lost Time Injury Frequency Rate (LTIFR) of 0.00.
LTIFR measures the frequency of workplace injuries resulting in lost work time relative to hours worked. A reported rate of zero indicates that no lost-time injuries were recorded under the applicable measurement during the period.
The Steelie Awards recognise achievements by member companies of the World Steel Association across the steel industry. The 2026 Excellence in People award was decided by an independent panel of experts.
Jindal Steel said the recognition reinforces its focus on building a workplace safety culture in which employees demonstrate practical competence alongside theoretical knowledge.
The company operates integrated steel facilities in Angul, Raigarh and Patratu, supported by captive resources, advanced manufacturing capabilities and a mine-to-metal business model.
Its steel products serve sectors including infrastructure, construction and manufacturing, while the company continues to emphasise operational efficiency and workplace safety.
