There has been quite a lot of hue and cry about safety on the road. Truly, the staggering number of fatalities on the road across the country naturally demanded a stir in our conscience to deal with the menace. Different measures are always being taken, though mostly on a trial and error basis, to tackle the problem but not to any tangible solution as yet. Reckless driving still goes on and the toll of lives lost in accidents keeps growing in the count list. The road safety act tabled in the parliament may be a deterrent of some scale. We can hope, at least!
Safety is unequivocally important for our life-whether in our mobility or at home or at workplaces. Besides those on the road or river ways, there are a lot of incidents at the workplaces that have been killing and maiming people. The situation is quite worrying in the construction sector where, according to reports, over a thousand workers were killed last year while many more lost their workability due to injuries. This should be a matter of concern as because constructions have to go on to meet our development desires.
There are of course rules and regulations regarding occupation health and safety but accidents and fatalities continue to take place because of the lack of proper implementation of these measures. More significant cause of accidents is the lack of awareness. Construction sector, in particular, is very vulnerable to fatalities and casualties.. Often we hear about serious fatalities in the construction sites.
Logistics, storage, piling, infrastructure development, plastering, painting, electrification etc. etc. --- various kinds of job are required at one place.
According to international studies and researches, construction workers have three times more chances of being killed or injured than any worker in other sectors of economic activity. Statistics in Bangladesh show that over forty per cent of occupational injuries and fatalities are recorded in the construction domain.
The issue of safety does not relate to law and tools only. It very much relates to behaviour. Attitude and behavioural actions lead to accidents. The behavioural aspect can be disciplined if there is holistic commitment from the top leadership and related management.
Besides commitment, safety depends much on training and mindset. While proper training is a dominating factor, mindset of the concerned people plays the pivotal role in assessing risks and averting accidents. Overconfidence, impatience and disregard to regulations are the root causes of all accidents. Abundance of tools and harness cannot alone prevent accidents. Awareness and attitude are the prerequisites.
Quality of construction materials also plays a definite role in ensuring safety. Quite often we hear about accidents due to the use of poor quality ingredients like cement, stone, steel, electric wires etc. Once again, there has to be a holistic commitment and practice by the leadership of the construction domain --- manufacturer, supply chain and consumers--- to ensure appropriate quality of the materials.
Health and safety of the workers at construction sites are closely linked to sustainability as well. Healthy conscious workers and safe working environment for them can contribute to sustainability at large. It is more important as we expect a manifold increase in the number of workers in the sector in the coming years owing to our massive development plans and improvement in our living standard. If we do not take measures now, the scale of fatalities will also increase manifold. We do not wish it to happen.
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