Tata Housing signs an MoU with NSC to promote environment, health and safety in real estate sector

The FINANCIAL — Tata Housing, India’s real estate development company, has signed a MoU with the National Safety Council of India (NSC) to create awareness and promote the cause of environment, health and safety (EHS) in the Indian real estate industry, according to Tata Sons.

This agreement represents Tata Housing’s persistent efforts to make EHS rules and regulations a priority for the real estate industry.

The MoU was signed between Brotin Banerjee, MD and CEO, Tata Housing, and VB Sant, director general, NSC. The key objective of the MoU will include streamlining exchange of technical expertise between two organisations and to collaboratively work towards making EHS a norm for the real estate industry.

“The Tata group being a pioneer of employee welfare approach in India, EHS naturally ranks on top as one of the group’s core philosophy of doing business. In line with the group’s ethos, we at Tata Housing are looking at building the most effective approach for building an EHS-conscious industry. We are partnering with NSC to institutionalise occupational health standards which will help to inculcate a safety culture within the real estate sector,” said Mr Banerjee, on signing the MoU.

“Construction is considered as one of the most risky industries when it comes to occupational safety, and the rate of fatal accidents is about four to five times than in manufacturing. A recent research suggests the average fatal accident frequency rate in Indian construction sector is 15.8 for 1,000 employees as against 0.23 in the US," said Mr Sant.

"Through this MoU, NSC, along with Tata Housing intends to ensure that compliance of health, safety, security and environment regulations is on a sustainable level and not a one-time practice. We endeavour to achieve these objectives by propagating these messages through training modules and educational elements such as training videos, onsite physical training, etc amongst lakhs of construction workers working across construction sites all over India,” he added.