Safety culture is embedded not only in systems and SOPs but also in the leadership behaviour

Jagdish Chanpa is a senior EHS leader with nearly two decades of experience driving safety excellence across renewable energy, transmission lines, manufacturing, and large scale infrastructure. As Country Head - EHS at Mahindra Teqo, he leads safety governance, digital transformation, and high risk control programs across a 12+ GW renewable asset portfolio, strengthening global standard EHS culture and predictive risk systems. Previously, at Adani Green Energy, he steered multi GW wind, solar, and transmission operations, delivered ~1200 MW without LTI, and authored AGEL’s first Sustainability and Integrated Reports. A certified Lead Auditor for ISO 45001 and ISO 14001, he is recognized for building Zero Harm–oriented organizations in complex, high risk environments. In a recent interview with OSH India, he shared his views on HSE challenges across industries and ways to alleviate them. Here are the excerpts:

Please tell us about your organization and its focus areas in HSE.

Mahindra Teqo is a leading end to end renewable energy asset management company, committed to delivering high quality services across India’s clean energy ecosystem. With a growing national footprint and a robust operational portfolio, safety forms the foundation of every activity we undertake.

Our HSE focus revolves around:

• Zero Harm & Zero Incident Culture
• Risk based safety management across all operational and maintenance functions
• Strengthening contractor safety, behavioural safety, and competency development
• Process discipline and compliance aligned with statutory and global standards
• Data driven safety governance through monitoring, audits, and digital tools
• Continuous capability building through training, leadership involvement, and robust EHS systems

As the organisation continues to scale, we ensure that safety is embedded not only in systems and SOPs but also in leadership behaviour and everyday decision making.

What challenges do you face as a key HSE professional?

Some of the key challenges in today’s dynamic environment include:

• Workforce competency & turnover: Large-scale renewable operations involve diverse contractors with varying skill levels. Ensuring consistent safety competency across all locations is a continuous challenge.
• Behavioural safety gaps: Technical controls alone do not eliminate incidents. Influencing behaviour, attitudes, and risk perception requires sustained leadership intervention.
• Geographically distributed sites: Managing safety culture seamlessly across multiple remote locations demands strong governance, real time reporting, and standardised processes.
• Adapting to evolving technologies: With the growth of automation, high voltage equipment, and hybrid energy systems, upskilling teams to meet new risk profiles is essential.
• Strengthening contractor ecosystem: Ensuring alignment of third party workforce with organisational safety expectations is often complex but absolutely critical.

What strategies/solutions do you deploy to alleviate those challenges?

We follow a multi layered and structured approach:

• Strong leadership-driven safety culture: We recently launched the Safety Leadership Walkthrough Initiative, where leaders visit sites, interact with teams, identify hazards, and reinforce safe practices. Leadership visibility has significantly improved cultural ownership.
• Competency enhancement programs: We conduct role based training, high-risk work modules, refresher programs, contractor onboarding sessions, and certification pathways to build a skilled and safety-conscious workforce.
• Data and digital governance: We monitor safety KPIs, near miss trends, audit scores, and action closures through structured dashboards and digital reporting mechanisms, ensuring transparency and accountability.
• Strengthening contractor safety: We focus on capability building, periodic audits, tool-box engagements, and strict adherence to safety commitments and contractual requirements.
• Engineering controls & process improvements: We continuously invest in safer tools, innovative engineering solutions, energy isolation improvements, fall protection, and upgraded PPE standards.

What are your views on the current HSE scenario in Indian industries, and what more needs to be done?

India has made significant progress in strengthening safety regulations, raising awareness, and adopting international practices. Many industries today view safety not only as compliance but as a business enabler.

However, a few areas still need focused action:

• Behavioural transformation: The shift from “compliance driven safety” to “ownership-driven safety” must accelerate.
• Contractor safety integration: Most incidents happen within contractor ecosystems. Stronger capability building and accountability are essential.
• Technology adoption: Digital tools, automation, IoT-based monitoring, and predictive analytics can dramatically reduce incidents.
• Skill development & standardisation: There is a need for national-level harmonisation of safety training and competency standards.
• Leadership involvement: A strong, visible, and committed leadership culture remains the biggest catalyst for improvements in safety performance.

What new HSE initiatives are you planning to implement within your organisation in the near future?

We are working on several forward-looking initiatives:

• Behaviour-Based Safety (BBS) Program: A structured system to observe behaviours, provide positive reinforcement, and address at-risk actions.
• Digital Safety Transformation: Deploying mobile-based reporting, digital checklists, dashboards, and predictive analytics for incident prevention.
• Advanced high-risk work controls: Strengthening LOTO systems, work-at-height protocols, and energy isolation practices.
• Competency enhancement framework: Developing a multi-level skill development structure for both employees and contractors.
• Leadership Safety Index: A scorecard to measure and benchmark leadership contribution to safety culture and outcomes.

These initiatives collectively aim to scale safety maturity and reach the goal of Zero Harm across all operations.