Safety Management in Building in Dhaka City

CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION

1.1 General

Building construction in Bangladesh has earned bad name for its poor safety records when compared with other industries. Accidents arise from different causes that can be attributed to unsafe design and site practices and can generally be classified as physical incidents posing hazardous situations, and behavioral incidents caused by unsafe acts. The building construction process itself is also seen as being poorly planned in terms of both design and building construction, with major inadequacies relating to the erection, maintenance, and demolition of buildings and structures. In Bangladesh, where the building construction industry is growing without any proper guidelines, condition in building construction sites is even worse. Unsafe building construction sites causing injuries and even death to people engaged in building construction works are not very uncommon.

With the advancement in building construction technology and growing number of building construction sites, the need for proper attention to safety aspects is becoming an important issue. Proper steps should be taken to improve safety at building construction sites so that loss of limbs and life, suffering and damage resulting from avoidable accidents is prevented. Promotion of safety measures at site will not only result in a better working environment but will also induce higher productivity and greater contentment among workers. However, there have been very few attempts to assess the building construction sites existing safety climate of building construction sites in Bangladesh.

There is virtually no data base or records of accidents that have occurred over the years in building construction sites. The nature and type of accidents, their frequencies, fatality rate and exact causes are virtually unknown. Scarcity of data is compounded by the fact that there is a tendency at management level to conceal occurrence of accidents at their sites. As the...