Page 36 - CV Feb-March 2023 issue_Neat

The Construction (Design and Management) Regulations 2015 serious accidents, which is also short-lived and after some times,
(CDM) makes construction clients, designers, and contractors it becomes business-as-usual. The workforce mostly comprises
responsible for work to be carried out in a way that ensures the rural workers who migrate to towns and cities in search of work
health and safety of workers and the public. Laws such as the due to factors like a lack of employment opportunities in villages
Control of Substances Hazardous to Health Regulations 2012 are or farming and poverty. Unfortunately, at the construction sites in
there to protect employees from the risk of exposure to hazardous the cities, they face unsafe and unhealthy working and living
substances, such as dust, vapour, fumes, and gases. conditions. Poor accommodation, food and sanitation, unsafe
working practices, and inadequate healthcare provision are
Most importantly companies that fail to comply with health and common.
safety laws face the risk of criminal prosecution and financial
penalties. In 2017-2018, £19m in fines were imposed on British Training is another area that the construction industry in India
construction companies for breaching safety protocols. needs serious improvement. Although Workers receive many
manhours of unstructured information on health and safety, they
In India however, in some of the unorganized sectors, employers are poorly trained in an organized manner, based on a
are not legally obliged to report work-related accidents, injuries, comprehensive gap analysis between the desired level of
and cases of ill health to the enforcing authorities. Also, many competence and their actual level of competence. Because of
incidents, like deaths on construction sites are not officially their temporary status (average retention of workmen in typical
reported, mainly due to the fact that enforcement authority for the construction project is only 3 to 6 months), contractors don't feel
Building & Other Construction Workers (BOCW) Rules is not very the need to invest their resources in training or health and safety
well geared up for capturing this data, unlike the enforcement of the workmen.
authority for Factories Rules, where accurate data is available.
Construction workers are also at risk of developing serious health
The official statistics for work-related fatalities, injuries, and cases conditions. Musculoskeletal disorders (like back injuries), caused
of ill health usually don't give a clear picture of the scale of the by manually lifting heavy loads, and respiratory ailments, such as
problem silicosis from exposure to dust while cutting and grinding up
The health and safety of migrant workers should be made a stones, are some of them. There is a general lack of awareness
priority among the public, workers, and employers in India about serious
In India, however, for many employers in the construction sector, work-related health problems like these..
the health and safety of workers become a priority only after

34 / CONSTRUCTION VISION / February-March 2023