Study of Occupational Health, Safety and Environmental Aspects in Major Cement Manufacturing Industry (Ultratech Cement Limited.)

Abstract

Scientific progress has made life more comfortable; but there exists the potential for permanent anatomical or physiological damage due to hazards especially among industrial workers. Traumatic occupational injuries lead to 10,000 deaths among workers annually. The International Labor Organization (ILO) has observed that an estimated 50 million work related injuries occur every year or 160000 every day ^[1]. India's potential in infrastructure is vast and cement plays a vital role in the growth and development of the nation. India is the second largest producer of cement in the world. The cement industry has been expanding on the back of increasing infrastructure activities and demand from housing sector over the past many years. Cement consumption in India is expected to rise by 8–9 per cent over the next year, taking the estimated cement consumption in 2013–14 to about 280–285 MT, from around 260 MT in the 2012–13 fiscal, as per the Cement Manufacturers Association (CMA) ^[2].

Safety is a priority of any industrial activity. It is a positive cultural element that allows other improvements in the factory. An administration that does not attain to manage safety is not in a position to manage other functions. However, as work accidents and occupational diseases have an enormous impact on the health of workers and considerable economic and social impacts ^[3]. In addition, with the increasing complexity of industrial tissue and with the rapidity that the techniques develop in the big factories, risks assessment becomes a crucial and strategic answer to preserve workers health and safety on the one hand and to maintaining a qualified labor on the other hand.  The Health and safety performance of the cement industry as a whole is lagging behind that of other, more proactive, sectors of manufacturing industry. Within the sector, there is a wide range of performances. The better companies have demonstrated that it is possible to achieve injury rates similar to the average for the manufacturing industry. However even the best have room for further improvement. There is a particular need for the industry to encourage and help those companies and plants that are significantly under-achieving to raise their safety standards to ensure a sustainable industry that meets social and employment expectations ^[4]. In addition, with the permanent evolution of work, even its risks, it becomes increasingly insufficient to establish general safety rules of, relying solely upon standards and regulations to comply, but move to awareness, information, training and motivation of staff on the role of health and safety at work, steps previously required for the implementation of a prevention, even to a mitigation measures relevant and effective. That allows to define a general policy of prevention and to bring to successful management of industrial risk within the entity. Hence, it has become essential to give all staff a real sense of safety that will predict and act in very affective way; objective of this work. This study will present a technique of analysis to better understand the dynamic of the policy in terms of health and safety at work established in the cement plants.

Keywords: Safety, Risks, injury, Standards, Policy, Manufacturing.