Safety law, system and regulation influencing the construction sector in India

Abstract

In India most construction firms ignore safety rules and regulations before start of any work, and parallelly enforcement from the government side is lacking. So, to overcome this issue a case study research was conducted to investigate firms’ level of awareness, implementation and compliance with safety regulations of the Building and Other Construction Workers Act, 1996. The case study comprised three cases each of small companies, medium companies and large companies. Apart from these, interviews were conducted with government agencies to investigate the challenges faced while enforcing the safety regulations in construction projects. The results of the study revealed that most of the small firms are not registered under the BOCW Act, whereas medium and large firms are registered under this act. Most of the small firms are still not aware, not implementing or not complying with safety regulations, whereas medium and large firms were fully aware of all the safety regulations and not full implementing or fully complying with all the safety regulations. Lack of inspectors, awareness, registrations, training and online inspection system are the major challenges faced by government agencies while enforcing the safety regulations in construction projects. Further research should be carried out to find why firms in India are not implementing and complying with safety regulations. Apart from this, further research should also be carried out to find what are the challenges faced by firms when implementing and complying with safety regulations. From the government side, further research should be carried out as to why government inspectors are unable to fully enforce the safety regulations in construction projects. Apart from this, further research should also be carried out to find why government inspectors are giving low priority to safety during the inspections.