Government needs to shed bureaucracy and look for opportunities to engage organizations in developing constructive health and safety policies for workplaces

We spoke to Shivakumara C, Head of Health Safety & Environment-Project and Development Services, Jones Lang LaSalle to understand his assessment of the current occupational safety and health scenario in India and how it compares to global standards, the key challenges related to implementing safety regulations within a large organisation, what more the government needs to do to help improve OSH awareness and the activities and training programs they undertake to improve worker safety in their organisation.

Interviewed by Adeesh Sharma

What is your assessment about the current occupational safety and health scenario in India? How does it compare to global standards?

Organizations both private and public sectors are doing a lot on health and safety that are far beyond the expectations of existing laws, health and safety codes, Government to needs shed bureaucracy and look for opportunities to engage organizations in developing constructive health and safety policies for workplaces. These days advanced machineries manufacture goods, machineries build buildings and engage much less people than a decade before and the health and safety risks that we encounter at work places these days have transformed to something else than what our laws pictured. There is an urgent need to shelve some codes and certain section of the laws and to entirely transform the health and safety enforcement fraternity into forward thinking association. I wouldn’t like to compare global standards; in India we have our own challenges and our own limitations.

What are the key challenges related to implementing safety regulations within a large organisation?

I belong to construction sector, challenge in construction sector is Skill & Education. Eg: A mason or carpenter in India remains a mason or carpenter, just because his father was a carpenter or a mason, I do not have a choice to go study a mason’s course (Say Job oriented course for a year) and join a construction company.

What more do you believe the government needs to do to help improve OSH awareness?

There is a need for Government to engage private & public sectors as partners to improve health and safety across industries.

List the activities and training programs you undertake to improve worker safety in your organisation.

We start all our meetings with a safety moment (a recent learning from some significant incident), Work at height, Electrical safety, Excavation safety measures, & Behaviour Based Safety.

What is your advice to large occupational safety and health shows such as OSH India to help further the cause of spreading awareness about safety in Indian organisations?

Continuous consultation between health and safety enforcement agencies and organizations, introduction of improved health & safety practices. Programs between Programs around synchronizing the thoughts between the Organizations and Government is most important thing. It is important for Organizations to know why Government is enacted a law and other hand it is important for Government to know what is required to be done to smoothen the process of implementing a law without having detrimental effects.