The Hindu : `Improve safety steps in construction sector'

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Apr 25, 2003

Southern States

Southern States - Kerala

`Improve safety steps in construction sector'

By Our Staff Reporter

KOCHI APRIL 24. About 9 per cent of the accidents in the construction sector are caused by fire and if better safety measures are adopted these incidents can be controlled, the former head of the School of Engineering at Cochin University of Science and Technology, K. P. S. Nair, has said.

He was speaking at a three-day national training programme on safety in the construction industry, which ended here today. The programme ended with a call for changes in safety measures in keeping with the developments that have taken place in the construction sector.

The workshop was organised jointly by the National Safety Council, Mumbai, and the National Safety Council, Kerala Chapter.

Dr. Nair said that often it was because proper attention was not paid to the safety aspects that the number of accidents had increased.

Abraham Varghese, chief medical officer, Binani Zinc, said that construction workers should be made more aware of the health problems that affected them. He called for better attention to personal hygiene among workers.

The construction industry covers a vast area of activity and is indispensable to infrastructure development. However, the industry has lagged in safety measure adoption in the past.

In one of the papers presented at the programme, it was pointed out that about 45 per cent of the accidents in the industry was owing to falls.

Falling materials accounted for 14 per cent of the accidents and transport too accounted for the same percentage.

The annual value of the Indian construction industry is about Rs. 1,500 million or Rs. 70 lakh per working minute.

The construction industry is considered one of the most hazardous and has a higher accident rate than most other industries. In India, the industry employs about 18 million people.

The construction industry worldwide accounts for about 54 million workplace accidents every year, out of a total work place accidents of 250 million.

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