Interviewed by Adeesh Sharma

We spoke to Mike Robinson, Chief Executive, British Safety Council to understand his assessment about the current OSH scenario in India, the objective behind opening a dedicated office in India and also the British Safety Council’s endeavour over decades in helping improve OSH awareness across the globe.

1. What is your assessment about the current OSH scenario in India? How does it compare to global standards?

In a country with a population of 1.25 billion, around 80% of workers of the estimated 465 million-strong workforce are not protected by the existing health and safety legal framework. Here are a few pointers:

• Legislation: Indian health and health laws currently cover only four industry sectors: factories, mines, ports and construction and they apply to workplaces of certain size. The main H&S legislation in India is the Factories Act 1948, amended in1987. Other H&S legislation include: the Mines Act 1952, the Dock Workers Act 1986, the Building and other Construction Workers Act 1996 and the Child Labour (Prohibition and Regulation) Act 1986 prohibiting employment of children under 14 in certain hazardous processes.
• Regulator: Occupational health and safety is the responsibility of the Ministry of Labour and of labour departments at the state level. India’s 29 states are relatively autonomous in implementing H&S legislation.
• Work-related fatalities: The Directorate General Factory Advice Service and Labour Inspectorate (DSFASLI), which coordinates the work of state inspectors, says that there were 1,469 fatal accidents in 2011. The 2003 estimate of the International Labour Organisation (ILO) was 47,000 people killed in workplace accidents. The 2016 paper by DA Patel and KN Jha, An estimate of fatal accidents in Indian Construction, quotes 48,000 fatalities per year.
• In comparison with the UK, which had 137 fatalities in 2016, this is twenty times higher (after adjusting for the difference in population).

Challenges

• A large proportion of Indian workforce remains outside the existing health and safety laws.
• Regulators are under-resourced and H&S laws are poorly enforced, with just one factory inspector for every 506 registered factories (source: The 2012 report of the Asian Monitor Resource Centre [AMRC] Invisible Victims of Development: Workers Health and Safety in Asia).
• There is no requirement to report accidents and ill health in many industry sectors. Hence there are serious concerns that the official statistics are seriously under-reported.
• Poor HSE culture; there is poor incentive structure for HSE function (financial cost/benefit analyses are often short term, ie “It’s easier to make a small payout than make an organisational change”). Lack of importance given to health and safety in both education and employment often results in apathy of stakeholders and the “your safety is your problem” attitude.

2. Please elaborate on the objective behind the move to open a dedicated office in India and how is it going to help improve OSH awareness in India. Also, how would you rate British Safety Council’s endeavour over decades in helping improve OSH awareness across the globe?

So far, the British Safety Council has been dealing with mainly big businesses in India, working with their supply chains to reach the highest number of people in the shortest possible time. In 2016, the British Safety Council worked with over 100 Indian companies (many of them on the India Fortune 500). Among its members are: Indian Oil, Larsen & Toubro, Mumbai International Airport, Reliance Industries and Tata. Many leading Indian businesses take part in the British Safety Council’s International Safety Awards and our Sword/Globe of Honour awards. They have also sent delegates to BSC’s public training courses in London.

By opening its office in Mumbai, the British Safety Council will be able to reach further into these sectors with its expertise, advice and training and influence the behaviour of smaller organisations. The British Safety Council’s vision is: no-one should be injured or made ill at work. We hope to raise awareness of the importance of health and safety in India, challenge traditional views and approaches, as well as support employers in adopting practices which better safeguard the health and safety of their workers.

There is strong demand for HSE training, audit and consultancy services. The British Safety Council business unit in India will offer greater flexibility and responsiveness to customer needs, with a locally based team who has personal knowledge and experience of working in India. They will be better placed to respond to customer requests and our cost base will be lower, allowing us to engage with a wider range of organisations and to deliver a more diverse portfolio of products and services.

The British Safety Council hopes to bring about a culture change with regard to workplace health, safety and wellbeing. Although legislation is very important for bringing about this change, such issues like leadership are essential for introducing and embedding that change. It’s not enough that the senior management of the company says the right thing. They need to believe in it and demonstrate it in everything they do. Then the workforce will follow. The British Safety Council will also be promoting the business case of the health and safety, demonstrating that commitment to health and safety gives companies a competitive advantage in the modern business world.