Workers Safety at Indian Construction Sites—A Survey

The construction industry is known as one of the unpredictable and hazardous sectors in which the workers are more susceptible to construction accidents. Despite many efforts put in to enhance construction site safety, construction accounts for quite disproportionate number of occupational injuries and fatalities. Urbanized nations attempt to guarantee stringent lawful enforcement of construction site safety in the industry by implementing various safety management systems. Conversely, occupational safety in the industry is found to be quite poor in a developing country like India due to lack of safety regulations and standards, data on safety at construction sites, safety training, safety awareness, and organized safety management systems. Although much improvement is achieved in construction safety, India is still lagging behind many other countries in this regard. This study focuses on the prevalent safety management practices in the Indian industry and the construction sites in the twin cities of Hyderabad and Secunderabad (TS, India), a hub of Infrastructure development in India, has been chosen as the area of study. The data collection was done through an industry survey by means of questionnaire and interviews with construction workers. The results revealed that the safety level of construction firms in the study area and also other factors are all the reason for non-safety performance of firms. A few recommendations have been made for safer construction, as an outcome of the study.