Evaluation of Safety Performance in a Construction Organization in India: A Study

In India the construction industry is the second largest employer next to agriculture and about 31 million people are employed in construction sector. Indian construction industry is labour intensive comprising of semi- skilled and unskilled workers. The measurement and evaluation of an organization's performance on health and safety conditions at work mainly aims at the provision of information about the current situation and the progress of the strategies, processes and activities that are adopted by an organization with the view to keep H&S hazards under control. The construction industry needs a new paradigm for measuring safety performance on construction sites that is a proactive approach rather than just depending on the reactive data. The proactive approach is able to provide essential feedback on performance before incidents occur. This paper presents proactive safety measures to eliminate unsafe actions/conditions which contribute towards accidents and injuries by conducting safety sampling survey and overall safety performance was evaluated by inter observer reliability of internal and external safety auditors. The study was conducted in a large construction organization, certified under OHSAS 18001 and involved in construction of high rise buildings in India.