IMPLEMENTING HEALTH SAFETY AND ENVIRONMENT IN AN ORGANIZATION

Ugandhar Phani Varma, Managing Director, Center for Health Safety and Environment talks about the need for OSH awareness and enforcement in India. He believes no matter what the requirements are, fulfilling the most basic needs should be given top priority. Needs assessment determines many things such as the quantity of required safety gear, fire prevention and protection equipment, trainings, plans, documentation, approximate cost of equipment and overall cost of implementation.

Health safety and Environmental management is being given equal priority with production and quality in the current industrial regime. As the awareness and enforcement in India is on the raise, most of the managements and professionals sometimes find it complicated to organize safety at their workplace. If not sorted out properly, we will be dealing with the most improper things which may deal greater implementation cost. Apart from achieving organizational goals, most of it would be to meet legal & client requirements. So the question arises, where should we begin? What could be the right way of implementation? What if we could not meet the requirements? How do we monitor the progress and effectiveness of implementation?

No matter what the requirements are, fulfilling the most basic needs should be given top priority. Assessing the needs gives us proper insights of what is required. Needs assessment determines many things such as the quantity of required safety gear, fire prevention and protection equipment, trainings, plans, documentation, approximate cost of equipment, overall cost of implementation. Gap analysis is also one form of needs assessment.

Some of the basic needs to implementation are:

Basic safety equipment: Involves Fire fighting equipment, Personal Protective equipment, Emergency kits, First aid kits, Evacuation plans, Signage