British Safety Council opens office in Mumbai

The British Safety Council, a charity and membership organisation for workplace safety and environmental management has opened its office in Mumbai. The organisation is one of the largest international providers of high quality health, safety and environmental consultancy services, training and audits for the workers in construction sector. In India it will function as the company’s wholly – owned subsidiary and work alongside the existing UK business in providing products and services into the Indian market. NIST Institute, an accredited health, safety and environmental (HSE) training organisation has collaborated with British Safety Council to deliver training on Level 2 Award in Principles of Fire Safety and Principles of Risk Assessment qualifications. With strong adherence to BSC standards, NIST imparts highly impactful experiential learning to refine one's skill, expertise, and capabilities. To conduct British safety council training in India, NIST operates 11 branches across major cities. According to a study, about 48,000 workers die in India due to occupational accidents out of which 38 fatal accidents take place every day in the construction sector. The British Safety Council points out that there is just one factory inspector for 506 registered factories in India. Speaking on the safety of Indian workers, Mike Robinson, Chief Executive of the British Safety Council said, “India with 1.25 billion population has a strong workforce of 465 million people. However, only 20% of them are covered under the existing health and safety legal framework. Though there are laws to address these health and safety concerns, their implementation is a big task due to lack of adequate manpower.” The British Safety Council in India aims to challenge traditional views and approaches, and support employers in adopting practices which better safeguard the health and safety of their workers. Through its Indian subsidiary, the council will offer services like audit, training, e-learning, qualifications and memberships which are tailored according to the Indian market. The council said that it will be supporting the Indian government’s efforts to create and implement legislation to extend occupational health and safety coverage to all industry sectors.