Tamil Nadu   

Call to improve safety standards in industry

Special Correspondent

"Enforcement is not satisfactory"

CHENNAI: Though safety and health norms in industrial establishments were an essential part of economic development of the nation, enforcement of the requirements was not satisfactory, said K.C. Gupta, Director-General of National Safety Council.

Addressing the fifth anniversary meet of the Safety Engineers Association (India), Mr. Gupta said the biggest challenge was ensuring sufficient number of qualified and certified safety engineers in industrial as well as construction sectors.

He said though the construction sector employed over 30 million workers and was five-six times bigger than the industrial sector it had a long way to go in fulfilling the safety requirements practised in developed countries. Instead of waiting for Governmental initiative there was a great need for the industry itself to come together and find a way to improve safety standards, he said. K.A. Mohamed Aziz, Chief Inspector of Factories, Tamil Nadu, called for more frequent interaction among safety engineers in order to share knowledge of industrial accidents. The SEA can also bring out a bulletin containing information relating to recent industrial mishaps, investigation into them and remedial measures, he said. J. Ganguly, executive vice-president of the L&T, said multinational clients in the construction industry were demanding better safety standards and added that more importance was attached to safety than even size of the company and its finances.

While M. Lakshmanan, president, SEA, stressed the relevance of the role played by safety engineers, Kasthurirangan of the Chennai Petroleum Corporation Limited highlighted the importance of workers using the permanent protective equipment supplied by the management.

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