India: Better worker safety through economic growth

INDIA: With globalisation, we are finding that there has been a substantial improvement in health and safety in different sectors,” said the head of the National Safety Council of India (NSCI), K.C. Gupta.

“The (change) will come by virtue of economic growth in the country. I’m positive about that. Realisation is coming but the practice takes time,” he told AFP at the body’s headquarters in Navi Mumbai.

Despite his confidence, Gupta, a 73-year-old trained electrical engineer who has worked in the health and safety sector for more than 30 years, admits that changing the status quo is a “huge job”.

India has a raft of legislation to regulate individual sectors, from mining and factories to construction and agriculture, but like many areas, enforcement is often lacking, said Gupta.

Details of workplace accidents are a regular feature in the country’s newspapers. Most merit only a few paragraphs.

But in July, more attention was paid when six people were killed and more than a dozen others injured when a partially constructed bridge collapsed on New Delhi’s flagship metro project.

Bosses later said that more than 90 workers had died in accidents during the construction of the network in the last 10 years.

Elsewhere there have been claims of 48 deaths and nearly 100 serious injuries among construction workers on projects for next year’s Commonwealth Games in the Indian capital.

Mumbai, Sunday, AFP