The Indian economy has grown manifold over the last three decades and most of this development has manifested itself in the form of increased industrial and construction activity spread across the entire length and breadth of the nation. The industrial development has led to new industries being set up which use modern and advanced machinery and processes as part of the manufacturing, construction, and services sectors. This has also led to millions of workers finding jobs in factories and sites of different scale thus exposing them to occupational hazards in the form of personal safety and health and mental wellbeing and hygiene. The COVID-19 pandemic has also brought about a completely different set of challenges which most organisations are slowly coming to terms with.

The myriad industrial activity requires specialist knowledge of occupational safety and health laws and processes, most of which are routinely implemented and followed by leading industrial corporations in India and abroad. The HSE practitioners within these organisations have a vast experience of implementing these laws and processes and have scaled many a height in overcoming safety and health challenges withing their organisations. However, it is the small and mid-size (SME) organisations that still struggle with the knowledge and implementation of OSH laws and best practices and hence are a cause of grave risk to worker safety and health within their fold.

The OSH Gurukul campaign is a serious attempt at correcting these flaws. This hands-on safety and health awareness campaign shall draw from the experience of HSE veterans in large Indian industries and take their experiences to the uninitiated safety and health practitioners in the SME sector, thereby fulfilling the ambitious goal of bridging OSH divide within the large and small industrial clusters. This campaign will make India a safer place and hence bring in confidence in foreign investors to invest in a safe Indian manufacturing atmosphere, especially in the backdrop of the new Occupational Safety, Health and Working Conditions Code, 2020.