About
The Anil Agarwal Foundation's stated mission is to empower communities, transform lives and facilitate nation building through sustainable and inclusive growth.
Vedanta's cultural activities include presenting sponsorship of the Jaigarh Heritage Festival, participation at the Jaipur Literature Festival (ESG and brand positioning), and support of Jashn-e-Rekhta. The Nand Ghar anganwadi programme is the AAF's primary social programme and is not included in this cultural profile.
Vedanta's engagement with arts and culture has grown significantly from 2022 onwards, as the company has sought to build a more positive public profile in states where it operates mining, oil and zinc extraction businesses. Rajasthan, where Hindustan Zinc (a Vedanta subsidiary) has significant operations, has been the primary geography for cultural investments. The Vedanta Jaigarh Heritage Festival was established as a signature cultural platform, presented in its first edition in December 2024 and its second in December 2025, featuring Rajasthani folk music including Manganiyar and Bhopa-Bhopi performers, heritage walks and craft workshops.
At the Jaipur Literature Festival, Vedanta's participation has been positioned explicitly around ESG narrative amplification and brand visibility rather than pure cultural philanthropy. At Jashn-e-Rekhta 2025, Vedanta presented the Dastaan-e-Metals experience, connecting the company's mineral extraction work to India's cultural and craft heritage through an exhibition.
This pattern suggests that Vedanta's cultural engagement is primarily driven by brand strategy and stakeholder relations in Rajasthan rather than a deep institutional commitment to arts funding. The company has the scale and the geographic presence in culturally significant regions to become a meaningful patron of folk and tribal performing arts, crafts and heritage conservation. The current engagement, while real and growing, remains primarily event sponsorship rather than sustained institutional support.
Founding & Leadership
Anil Agarwal (born 1954, Patna, Bihar) is the founder and non-executive chairman of Vedanta Resources Limited, one of the world's largest integrated diversified natural-resources companies. He left Bihar at 19 and began as a scrap metal trader in Mumbai, establishing Vedanta in 1976 as a trading firm. Through a series of acquisitions and expansions across zinc, copper, aluminium, iron ore, oil and gas, and power, the group became a global conglomerate listed on the London Stock Exchange (2003; taken private 2018), with its primary Indian operating subsidiary Vedanta Limited remaining publicly listed on the NSE and BSE. Agarwal established the Vedanta Foundation for philanthropy in 1992; the Anil Agarwal Foundation, the formal CSR entity, was incorporated in 2004. Inspired by philanthropists including Andrew Carnegie and Bill Gates, he has pledged to donate 75 percent of his family's wealth to social causes and formally joined the Giving Pledge in 2021. In 2021, the Foundation committed Rs 5,000 crore over five years to social impact programmes. His daughter Priya Agarwal Hebbar is a director of AAF and chairs Hindustan Zinc Limited.
Leadership & Trustees
Initiatives & Portfolio
Presenting Partner of the Jaigarh Heritage Festival produced by Teamwork Arts at Jaigarh Fort, Jaipur. Featured Rajasthani folk music, dance, heritage walks and craft workshops. First edition December 2024, second edition December 2025.
Vedanta participates at JLF as a sponsor and programming partner, with participation focused on ESG narrative amplification and brand positioning among the festival's policy, media and intellectual audiences.
Vedanta sponsored Jashn-e-Rekhta 2025 (10th edition) with the Dastaan-e-Metals experience, connecting the company's minerals and metals work to India's cultural craft heritage. Also supported the Rekhta Mushaira.
The AAF's flagship programme, establishing over 3,500 modernised anganwadis (Nand Ghars) in rural communities where Vedanta operates. Focuses on early childhood care, nutrition and women's empowerment. Explicitly NOT an arts and culture programme and is excluded from this profile's cultural assessment.
Support for women artisan communities in Rajasthan through Vedanta-backed initiatives (Sakhi, Samadhan, Jiji Bai, Maru Sagar), including block printing, bilona-chhas and puppetry workshops at the Jaigarh Heritage Festival.
Cultural Funding
Cultural verticals
Impact & Metrics
Partnerships & Network
Partner institutions
Government partners
AAF Bagaan at Jaipur Literature Festival (2024, 2025, 2026): dedicated cultural pavilion hosting sessions on oral storytelling traditions and craft workshops including lac bangle making, block printing, puppetry, folk music and dance. Vedanta Culture Festival at Dilli Haat (annual, February): artisan showcase connecting women from Nand Ghar self-help groups to urban markets. Subsidiary-level craft partnerships: BALCO Unnati programme (Chhattisgarh) and Hindustan Zinc women SHGs (Rajasthan) receive dedicated stalls at culture events.
Credentials & Compliance
CSR-eligible · Schedule VII(v) — Protection of national heritage, art and culture
CSR spend flows from 19 Vedanta Group subsidiaries under Section 135 of the Companies Act, 2013. Culture and heritage projects are categorised under Schedule VII(v). AAF coordinates and consolidates reporting but expenditure originates at subsidiary level.
Vedanta's cultural engagement is significant for two reasons. First, its geographic concentration in Rajasthan means it operates in one of India's most culturally rich regions, with direct proximity to the Manganiyar and Langa musician communities, the Jaigarh and Mehrangarh heritage sites, and the Jaipur festival ecosystem. Second, its scale, with revenues exceeding $17 billion, means even a marginal increase in cultural commitment would translate into substantial impact. The current footprint is growing but still primarily event-led rather than institutionally grounded.
[Atlas Perspective] Vedanta's cultural engagement is real and growing. The Jaigarh Heritage Festival, presented under the Vedanta name for two consecutive years, demonstrates genuine institutional commitment to a flagship cultural platform rather than one-off badge sponsorship. The artisan community support through the Sakhi and Samadhan programmes connects cultural preservation with economic empowerment in a way that is substantively more meaningful than pure event sponsorship.
The honest assessment, however, is that Vedanta's cultural spend remains brand-led. At JLF, participation was explicitly framed around ESG narrative amplification. At Jashn-e-Rekhta, the Dastaan-e-Metals experience positioned Vedanta's mineral extraction activities within a cultural frame. This is legitimate corporate cultural engagement, but it is not the same as the disinterested support that sustains cultural institutions independently of the funder's brand needs.
Vedanta is well-positioned to do substantially more. Its Rajasthan operations place it in the same geographic ecosystem as the Manganiyar and Langa communities documented in this Atlas, the Mehrangarh Museum Trust (a Gold Standard cultural institution), and the Jodhpur RIFF festival. Multi-year institutional support for folk musician communities, craft apprenticeship programmes or heritage site conservation in the districts where Hindustan Zinc operates would represent cultural philanthropy commensurate with the company's scale and its stated commitment to the communities where it extracts natural resources.