Government needs to shed bureaucracy and look for opportunities to engage organizations in developing constructive health and safety policies for workplaces

We spoke to Shivakumara C, Head of Health Safety & Environment-Project and Development Services, Jones Lang LaSalle to understand his assessment of the current occupational safety and health scenario in India and how it compares to global standards, the key challenges related to implementing safety regulations within a large organisation, what more the government needs to do to help improve OSH awareness and the activities and training programs they undertake to improve worker safety in their organisation.

Interviewed by Adeesh Sharma

What is your assessment about the current occupational safety and health scenario in India? How does it compare to global standards?

Organizations both private and public sectors are doing a lot on health and safety that are far beyond the expectations of existing laws, health and safety codes, Government to needs shed bureaucracy and look for opportunities to engage organizations in developing constructive health and safety policies for workplaces. These days advanced machineries manufacture goods, machineries build buildings and engage much less people than a decade before and the health and safety risks that we encounter at work places these days have transformed to something else than what our laws pictured. There is an urgent need to shelve some codes and certain section of the laws and to entirely transform the health and safety enforcement fraternity into forward thinking association. I wouldn