IDENTIFICATION AND MANAGEMENT OF HEALTH AND SAFETY (OHS) CONSTRAINTS IN INDIAN CONSTRUCTION INDUSTRY
1Raj Joshi, 2Sakshi Pachorkar
1Assistant Professor,Medi-Caps University, Indore, India
2MBA Student Medi-Caps University, Indore, India
Abstract:- Today, the construction industry is the biggest non-agriculture industry in India. In the country with the population of over 138 Cr, around 11.67 Cr of population is indulged in the construction industry as per MNREGA reports of the year 2020. This population constitutes majorly the semi-skilled and unskilled people as workers. Hence in the era of rapid industrialisation, the construction industry has become an immediate means of employment to these daily bread earners. This industry is forever temporary and hence there is a dearth of standard proceedings and regulations regarding health and safety at workplace. However, construction industry not only in India, but worldwide, has been criticized for its poor performance and guidance in areas of health and safety. In the study, the focus is on identifying hazards and risks associated with the construction industry and thus to reach the ways of its prevention as well as maintenance of health and safety at workplace.
Keywords: Occupational Health and Safety (OHS), Construction industry, Health and Safety, Risks and hazards, Safety management.
1. INTRODUCTION
Construction industry in India serves as the second powerful hand in the development of the nation as well as its economy. It is one of the most impactful industries of today, contributing as the second most in the economic and social development of the nation after agriculture, as it provides a good amount of employment possibilities to numerous including skilled, semi-skilled and unskilled altogether. The scope of this construction industry is too broad and is expanding more and more with the growth of industrialisation.
In enhancing business and project performance, a robust health and safety (H&S) regulatory system which is homogenous is one of the prerequisites, however developing countries are lagging in this.[19]
Construction is a high risk industry as there is always a darker side to the progressive growths. Construction industry takes account of the multi-party involvement of people. Being the most dynamic and continuously changing industry gives birth to various risks and hazards and hence generates a greater threat to the potentially explosive, unforeseen and unfamiliar hazards. The unpleasant and unwanted hazards give rise to few core issues, called as constraints. The construction industry typically includes: shifting of capital, tools, machines and labour from one site to another. Thus this leads to be termed as a completely unorganised and informal industry. Also, in places such as urban areas, the workers generally comes from rural background out of which mostly lack the training of on-site working methods, knowledge of new and advance machineries, safety management and techniques, occupational diseases and health hazards and many more. They are also not literate or trained enough to forecast the unknown dangers at the workplace. These hazards, injuries and deaths cost the economy a big loss at: enterprise, national as well as global level.
The creation and inception of safety management activities becomes salient here since construction is the type of industry where if an accident occurs, the investigation becomes rarely viable. According to ILO 2017 reports, 48,000 Indian people died due to occupational accidents out of which 24.20% of the fatalities contributed from the construction industry. Apart from this, the count must add the workers who suffered workplace health hazards and non- fatal injuries. [2]
According to Heinrich, the process of accidents causation is a chain of events. [12]
The first stage of this chain is the failure of worker or employee in social adjustments which then ends ultimately at fatalities. In such scenarios, “Occupational Health and Safety (OHS)” becomes indispensable to be followed up. A proper OHS program may lead an organisation towards various boons such as: workers’ health and safety, quality assurance,
for the construction industry to follow OHS and have certain safety guidelines along with its follow up activities. To achieve the objective of OHS it is required to get hold of certain health and safety constraints associated with the construction industry. It must be noted that in the study, the industrial employees have been termed as workers, labour, workmen and employees interchangeably.
2. LITERATURE REVIEW 2.1 Heinrich’s Domino Theory
H. W. Heinrich propounded “Heinrich’s Domino Theory” in relation to the accident causation. According to Heinrich, the process of causation of workplace accidents is a chain of events where the chain starts from the faults in social environment. This faulty social environment triggers human failure in society, resulting in induction or origin of unsafe actions and unsafe conditions at workplace. Unsafe actions make for 88% of accidents, 10%
are due to unsafe conditions and 2% are the unpredictable or “acts of God”. [12] Heinrich’s Domino Theory is the five imaginative labels as dominoes towards accident causation starting from social environment which gradually ends at fatality as:
Figure 1: Heinrich’s Domino Theory- The accident causation is due to proceeding factor
Figure 2: Removal of any link of the chain can make the next event ineffective.
Source: Internet. [3]
On that account, removal or amputation of a single domino can break-off the flow of sequence of accident causation in the row. Henceforth, post-identification of event happening, one can disrupt the chain of events and thus eradicate the accident causation events.
2.2 Heinrich’s Accident Triangle
H. W. Heinrich instituted a theory that explains industrial accident prevention in 1931 in his “Industrial Accident Prevention: A Scientific Approach” where he rooted the fact that 88% of accidents that occur are result of unsafe actions.
Fundamentally, the triangle theory claims that the zero injury accidents or near misses are the base to the minor injuries or incidents and consequently to major incidents or fatalities. To explain it, the near misses (bottom) are the basis to minor incidents (centre) and thus to major ones (top) and hence must be identified at the very lower stage.
Figure 3: Heinrich’s Accident Triangle
To illustrate, for every 300 near misses, there exists around 30 minor incidents and 1 serious or major incident. It can be inferred by this theory that occurrence or likelihood of major incidents or fatalities can be lessening with the lessening together with monitoring of the near misses. This act of prevention initiates only from identification of root cause of accidents and near misses. [6]
2.3 PDCA Cycle
For an industry working towards continuous improvement, this cycle serves useful. In the case of construction health and safety management being focused, the iterative PDCA cycle is worthwhile.
“Plan-Do-Check-Act” cycle or PDCA cycle if introduced in construction safety management can effectively chalk out the safety constraints and can monitor the safety activities on a continual basis. To apply it for Identification and Management of Health and Safety Constraints in Construction Industry
Figure 4: PDCA Iteration model for constraint management
Henceforth, the health and safety constraints in construction need to be managed and monitored for the sake of thoroughgoing performance management and to reach the optimum expected safety goals on-site.
3. IDENTIFICATION OF HEALTH AND SAFETY CONSTRAINTS IN CONSTRUCTION Construction workers are exposed to various risks and injuries at workplace. Such constraints in construction projects may limit their achievement of high performance. [9]
The non follow up of the safety measures in an industry may lead to hazard- either fatal or
3.1 Environmental Constraints
This may also include biological constraints. Airborne fibres and toxins give to environmental constraints. Dust by stone masonry, rubble removal, exposure to parasitic and infective agents, toxic fibres used in materials, working in excess sunlight, wood dust etc give rise to various diseases and injuries such as lung and skin cancer, tuberculosis, tetanus, strokes, hearing loss, eye damages and many more.
3.2 Chemical Constraints
One has to be exposed to countless varieties of chemicals and toxins while on site.
Especially in construction industry, this particular becomes often imperceptible and unseen. To illustrate, ceiling of floors, cutting of tiles, insulation, working with poisonous gases etc causes various fatalities and illness issues to workers. It might lead a worker prone to diseases such as cancer, skin diseases, lung diseases, asbestos risks, redness of eye etc.
3.3 Physical Constraints
Tasks and activities that involve some or more physical labour or effort can upsurge the list of constraints in health and safety management of workers. Handling of materials involving lifting, holding, carrying, lowering, pushing, pulling and loading is an all-time effort. This may cause injuries to body tissues, hand and vibration syndrome (HAVS), nerve injury, and even permanent disability of an organ.
3.4 Technical and Mechanical Constraints
Constraints that deal with the area of technicality, machineries arising from restrictive site area, congested surroundings etc. Working with electrical wiring, fire prone activities, heavy load machineries such as aerial lifts, concrete mixtures, loaders, clans, excavators, engines and generators, scrappers, welders etc has become the high risk zone of any construction site. Paralytic issues, handicap, body or organ disability, shocks, complete disability of body or even death can ensue.
3.5 Psycho-Social and Psycho-Somatic Constraints
Construction is a highly populated industry where social involvement and adjustments become superlative need and the failure to do so creates a social constraint for the site workers. These social constraints may appear minor or significant, but is very complicated to deal with. It must be known that social aspects include emotional and human behavioural aspects always.
Also, apart from social factors, psychological constraints may arise out of the industrial or job stress caused by various on-site stressors such as task demands, lack of group cohesion, lack of leadership skills, conflicted inter-relations, relocation of sites and emotional disturbance. Hypertension, rapid ageing, heart diseases, neurological illness, deformity, headache and many such disorders are often related to this.
3.6 Economic Constraints
The construction sites vary in size, location and area. For a large sized construction site, requires substantial capital, material etc. Economic or capital constraints solely occurs when there exists lack of capital or tools or economic perks, budget limit and lesser allocation of money to the constructor or top authority. Likewise, company size is also a limiting factor that impacts on the ability of small firms to implement comprehensive OHS plans. This place an increased burden on construction companies especially small firms that are not in a position of financial strength. [12] Thus the economic constraint can give rise to issues of limited technicality, more labour work, low quality product development and low performance.
However, it must be understood that some of these constraints described are manmade or known whereas some are unpredictable, unintended and unavoidable. For example, falling of excavations, collapses, inadequate protection while working from heights, breaking of aerial lifts, skyscrapers etc.
4. PREVENTION FROM IDENTIFIED CONSTRAINTS
According to Heinrich, human failure caused by faulty social environment is responsible for causing unsafe actions and unsafe conditions 88% of the on- site accidents are caused by unsafe acts, 10% due to unsafe conditions and 2% accidents that are unpredictable or unintended. [12] Many of these hazards can be deadly too as explained in the flowchart below.
Figure 5: On-Site Accidents Explained in Flow-Chart
Thus “Inter-observance” becomes the convenient and efficient practice to prevent such constraints and safety enhancement. To diminish the intensified on-site and industrial risks and hazards related constraints, several techniques can be adopted out of which the most relevant are:
4.1 Usage of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE)
It has been observed and analysed by the researcher that use of various PPE equipments and kits have prove to be an appropriate prevention from on-site injuries and accidents.
Additionally, most of the respondents agreed the elimination of risk constraints with the use of PPE.
Depending on the type of work or job performed, various tools can be called as a PPE for the sake of working employees. Below is the short illustration of PPEs that can be used on-site (Table 1):
Table 1 FACTORS OF CONSTRAINT AFFECTIVE
AREAS RECOMMENDED PPE Environmental Constraints
Dirt
Eyes Respiratory Skin
Stroke
Safety goggles
Dust Face masks and covers
Airborne toxins Safety gloves and masks
Excess sun and UV exposure Sun-blocking goggles and
temperature resistant masks Chemical Constraints
Chemical agents and toxins Nose Respiratory Skin
Eyes
Replaceable filter particulate
Poisonous gases Disposable particulates
Asbestos, cement etc Dust mask, coveralls and apron
Use of flammable materials Chemical resistant body covers Physical Constraints
Loading, de-loading Head
Body Protective type A and B helmets Holding, pushing, pulling etc Safety suits
Technical & Mechanical Constraints
Electrical wirings Body
Eyes Ears Face
Insulated jackets and gloves
Welding, drilling, cutting Safety goggles
Use of power tools Protective type A and B helmets
Machinery work Face sheets and masks
Psycho-Social-Somatic Constraints
Inexperience and untrained Neurological Body
Slipping Fall
Sign boards
Absenteeism Safety nets
Insobriety and drunkenness Anti-slip sole shoes
Emotional imbalance Safety shoes
Deformity and disability Protective coveralls
Economic Constraints
Lack of capital Body Minimum safety gadgets
Manual work Helmets
4.2 Routine Workplace Audits
Generally tackled by the HR Department of the big companies, a general audit must be performed at the workplace or site by the top level or front-line authorities of the company in case of no existential HRD in within.
Resultant to this audit, it could chalk out the accuracy and efficiency of work done as well as to detect the errors and wastage of material as well as labour, trace various loopholes and deficiencies identifiable, analyze and evaluate the actual working conditions with that of the standard ones and what not.
Also, audit of workmen i.e. Human Resource Audit must be taken into consideration, if possible, so as to gain information and pinpoints that might not seem to be spotted or observed by the auditor in the other areas, for labour can speak out the most relevant prospects and consequences of on-site working conditions.
4.3 Periodic Inspection of Activities Involved
An overall inspection of site, tools and machineries in the first place may aid in minimising the barriers and constraints that might occur due to unsafe work conditions. A regular check on:
Restricted areas or danger zones of the site must be inspected as well so as to understand if the workmen follow the restrictions or not.
Fencing of machineries, machines in motion or revolving machines, stairs and means of access, safety around power house area etc must be handled effectively.
Drug and alcohol testing of employees must be regularly done as an inspection of safety management as well as to have a check on quality of labour on the job.
4.4 Safety and Workplace Training
It has been observed that even with the adoption of various safety measures, one cannot control such risks and constraints that are causable due unsafe or manmade actions until and unless a provision of safety and job training takes step to the workmen or employees.
Workers, whether skilled, semi-skilled or unskilled; training is a crucial part in total safety management and hence removal of safety constraints. Since construction industry is a dynamic and continuously changing, the change or shift in sites give birth to new such constraints. One who is up-skilled with the on-job and safety trainings can only be prevented from such constraints outstandingly.
4.5 Assessment of Total Safety Management Practices
In India, most of the construction related accidents and fatalities have occurred due to some general yet deadly reasons to name a few: falling off from heights, falling due to slippery surfaces, electric shocks due to open wirings, fall or breakage of lifts and
escalators, falling off from unknown or unseen openings, caught in machineries or trenches etc.
In order to eliminate and degrade such catastrophes, assessment of Total Safety Management must be carried out by aiding: usage of barriers, danger and caution sign boards in the danger zones or openings, spreading the safety nets where risks of falling is seen to be higher, using covers such as tarpaulin to protect materials or power supply or box from damages, applying safety indicators for easy access of people on site and hoardings and precautionary boards that could guide the workmen with the further precautionary measures in case of any emergency.
4.6 Managing Site Traffic
A study reveals that nearly 7% of accidents happen due to heavy traffic on site.
Construction sites are heavily fulfilled with the movement of vehicles and people along with other kits and equipments. Trolleys, Lorries, stepladders, wheelbarrows, drills etc are small to medium sized abundantly used appliances than human on site. Other than these, various huge sized vehicles such as cranes, tower cranes, forklifts, concrete mixers, backhoe, loaders etc also constitute to the site traffic.
Not only workers but managers and visitors all can be at risk if these vehicles and equipments are not properly managed and controlled. Also their maintenance is supremely required as well. In addition to this, drivers or operators of these heavy vehicles and instruments must be trained and skilled in operating and using it and also be trained in giving clear signals.
5. CONCLUSION
The life of the employees or workers is in jeopardy on the job. Thus owners, contractors or top level authority must ensure proper safety and maintenance to them at work since most of them being unskilled or semi-skilled are often unaware of the insecurity. Apart from the accidental phase, severe constraints are sometimes led through poor social and cultural environment which ultimately calls up for the dreadful scenarios. Language barriers, poor leadership, superiority and seniority among employees, intergroup relationships, conflicts etc also invite menaces.
The study is aimed to establish current health and safety constraints prevailing and relevant in the construction industry and thus finding various ways to identify and eliminate them.
For a firm or company dealing in the construction industry, must follow the principles of health and safety management of its employees for the reason that a constant, periodic review and assessment of workplace and workmen is always fruitful to owner or contractor as well as workmen both. A structured and standard check such as evidence- based health and safety analysis (EHSA) must be frequently made which could assist in catching out the loopholes and thus assist in elimination of such hazardous activities and situations. It is suggested for the reason that the evidence-based health and safety analysis (EHSA) approach aims to find innovative ways to facilitate the collection of data and information from accumulated professional knowledge about accidents and failures as well as good practices and innovations, to derive useful lessons to inform improved practices in health and safety management especially in large scaled construction projects. [11]
Being the second most economically contributing industry, construction industry is a bread-earner to its owners and workmen. It side by side sustains national development as well. To maintain the robustness of this industry, the Govt. of India has also taken up an effort termed as “National Safety Council (NSC)” with the aim to generate, maintain and develop implications for health and safety management in Indian construction industry.
Though this effort taken by the Govt. of India in form of NSC could only be jubilant if the sense of cooperation and teamwork is approached.
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