Building Collapse in Chennai: How Can HR Help Prevent Future Tragedies?

Building Collapse in Chennai: A Call for HR Involvement

An under-construction building collapsed in Chennai last night, resulting in the tragic deaths of more than 10 laborers and leaving many others injured. Rescue operations are ongoing, and the death toll is expected to rise.

This incident of an under-construction building collapsing is not the first of its kind. As HR professionals, we should engage in discussions on the following points:

• Why do such incidents occur?
• Who bears responsibility for them?
• What measures can be taken to prevent such occurrences?
• What role should HR professionals play in preventing these incidents?

Let's come together to address these critical questions and work towards ensuring the safety and well-being of all individuals involved in construction projects.

Best regards,
[Your Name]

Appreciating such a posting with concern. Let me put down my thoughts with wholehearted condolences and prayers to the deceased souls. May God give strength to their families to sustain.

Why Do Such Incidents Occur?

- Lack of QC checks.
- Stringent completion targets with a focus only on results.
- Tremendous workplace stress.
- Safety being neglected or never considered a value/priority.
- The cost of non-compliance is much cheaper than the cost of compliance.

Who Is Responsible for It?

- Management
- Law enforcing agencies
- Government as a whole

What Should Be Done to Prevent Such Incidents?

- Stringent law enforcement should take place.
- Regular rigorous monitoring from law enforcing agencies at construction sites and conducting audits. Establish the understanding that the cost of non-compliance is 10 times greater than compliance.

What Should Be the Role of HR Professionals in Preventing Such Incidents?

HR professionals can do a lot. I have seen many companies where HR made a difference in their overall safety culture.

1. Acting as a key training and capability-building aid for the organization.
2. Setting rules in place at the time of recruiting. Does your company’s appointment letter state, “Safety is a condition of employment”?
3. Does your annual appraisal system measure the safety performance of individuals with a significant amount of rating? For instance, 10-20% depending on the role, with 20% mandatory for all top management staff?

HR can do a lot like this. Initiate something in your organization. At least with those initiatives, if you can save a person’s life, even indirectly, it’s a much divine act.

Regards

Greetings of the day. Let the departed soul in the collapsed building under construction rest in peace. The major points are already given by Mr. Dipil. I am also trying to give some reply.

1. Why do such incidences take place?

Improper QA/QC check, not following the approved plan, making deviations, and violating the approved plan.

2. Who is responsible for it?

The management is not following the quality check and soil test before commencing work to understand the soil's strength for withstanding the building being constructed. The government does not have proper checks on the locality and gives approval for construction where a lake was available. The public, who are lured by the cheap cost of owning a house in a city location.

3. What should be done to prevent such incidences?

The government should enforce strict compliance instead of extracting money from contractors. Government officials should focus on quality work by checking factors like tensile strength of reinforcement bars, concrete test reports, block strength test reports, etc., rather than minor details. They should not compromise on quality for personal gains.

4. What should be the role of HR professionals in preventing such incidences?

HR can provide training to all workers, engineers, and other employees on safety in construction activities, fostering a quality work culture, creating rescue action plans, disaster management, and preventing fire accidents.

Periodic reviews of trained employees' knowledge will enhance safety and quality awareness. Additional training can be provided until the required knowledge level and implementation are achieved.

Thank you.

It is a very unfortunate incident that took the lives of 10 employees. In my opinion, the answers to your questions are as follows:

1. Why do such incidents take place?
I strongly believe that the major contributing factors resulting in this incident are that the business owner may have tried to increase the profit margin by not providing the required safety precautions. This could also be a result of the involvement of incompetent engineers who designed the building without checking the soil nature, among other things.

2. Who is responsible for it?
This can only be determined once proper investigations are carried out.

3. What should be done to prevent such incidents?
Enforcing or restructuring laws where safety remains the number one priority, and implementing a system similar to the UK's HSE. Encouraging employees to speak up without fear of repercussions due to a lack of safety measures.

Regards,
Sam

Thanks for the nice discussion and very good comments.

Reasons for Construction Failures

1. Why do such things happen? The law is lenient on the perpetrators, including the authorities who approved the construction. There is a lack of monitoring of violations and corrupt officials. The government is always reactive and not proactive.

Prevention Measures

2. The authorities who approved should be removed from the job. The contractor, engineer, and architect involved should be blacklisted and banned from construction and any other activities. The act is not due to inefficiency but due to diabolical intentions.

3. Consumers should be more careful in checking the approvals, design, engineering aspects, and the people involved.

Regulatory Practices in India

4. In India, there is a practice of ratifying the violations with a fine, rather than declaring it unsafe and demolishing the buildings that have violated the rules.

Accountability and Compensation

5. I would put it on the officials, who are educated and the public trust them, and not the politicians. It is really pathetic; we perforce risk our lives to make our livelihood. Compensations should be recovered from the erring officials and people involved, not from the public account.

Regards,
Iyer R N

This is the second such incident that happened in Chennai. It was about 15-20 years ago when a 6-storey building under construction collapsed like a pack of cards in Ram Nagar, in the Perambur area of Chennai. The incident occurred near my sister-in-law's complex where they still reside. However, the site of the scene now remains a silent spectator, cleaned up and serving as a parking space for the neighborhood, as the court cases are still ongoing.

Now, the second incident, the third involving the same developers, with another complex adjacent, is set to follow suit (the TN government has cordoned off these complexes, suspending all activities there). There is nothing wrong with the laws; they are there to be followed, not flouted and flaunted. Officials overlook provisions of the law as unscrupulous builders squander the hard-earned money of prospective owners, risking their lives. We never seem to learn lessons from the past, time and time again.

The victim count has now risen to 44, all of them poor construction workers, with more bodies yet to be unearthed. All erring officials, developers, and those responsible should be charged with 'culpable murder'. Governments should not stop at just announcing ex-gratia amounts to the victims' kin but should enforce the law strictly without yielding to pull, pressure, money, or muscle power. Let us hope that there won’t be any more opportunities to discuss incidents like this. May God grant eternal peace to the departed souls and care to the next of kin of the deceased.

Regards

This particular incident is due to the following factors, prima facie:

1. Structural defect which brought down the building.
2. Building is built on a lake bed, and soil conditions are not checked for SBC.
3. Build Soil, it seems. They ought to have gone for Pile Foundation.
4. The Designers had not analyzed the site conditions properly.
5. The developer is naive, and he was from the Banking sector and ignored the technical aspects.
6. The Plan approving department - No proper checks.
7. Use of sub-standard materials.
8. Compromise on Reinforcement steel.

Safety is secondary in this incident. The main reason is a design flaw.

Regards,
Pon

It is quite heartbreaking to see the huge casualty at the Chennai building collapse. It is a common phenomenon that the workers engaged in construction live in and around the building under construction. At the time of construction, all are in. Now, who are the other people other than workers that are trapped in the present collapse? It is seen that the building came down heavily due to heavy rains. If that is the case, it is unfortunate that workers might have tried to seek shelter. The role of supervisory/management is to ensure that they are all out from the construction site when it is raining heavily.

Precautionary Measures and Legal Concerns

It is essential for everyone to consider precautionary measures to avoid such disastrous accidents. There is also a concern that they might not be covered under "The Building And Other Construction Workers Act, 1996," which provides workers with certain statutory benefits. This is simply to highlight that workers' requirements and welfare are being overlooked. I do not mean to imply that it has precedence, but only to emphasize that workers are a neglected group. Please consider this perspective as well.

What can I say, there has been yet another incident in Chennai claiming 11 lives as a 20 ft. compound wall under construction collapsed on them. The dwellers were camping by the side, leaving only one survivor in the wee hours of the 5th. It's a tragedy of human neglect, another sacrifice of human life. The upcoming scenario will likely involve a temporary halt to all construction activities under the pretext of mass reviewing and reassessment. Subsequently, the authorities will seize the opportunity to profit by granting restart permissions, thereby lining their pockets with more black money, further enriching officials and politicians. Even divine intervention may not be enough to save this country if such circumstances persist.

Latest News on Building Collapse

The latest news is about the low quality of Ready Mix Concrete used in the 12-story building collapse. It was also rumored that they got permission for 5 stories but constructed 12 floors. Let the fact-finding report come out.

Most of the workers' families were there as the day was the wage-disbursing day (Saturday). As you know, civil workers along with their families flock to construction sites to receive payment as most of the male workers head to TASMAC after securing their wages. Wives and children wait there to collect the hard-earned money from the drunkards. This is one case of why most innocents were in the troubled structure.

No insurance coverage for the people who invested their hard-earned money in the 94 dwelling units they booked. Tough life for the investors as well as the toiling community. The developers have a nexus with all enforcing authorities. People's memory is short, and the culprits will go scot-free after some drama of investigation, blah, blah.

In my opinion, the structure collapsed due to a structural defect but not because of a natural calamity. There is a nexus between the Builders' lobby with Banks/Approving Authorities/Lawyers. Always, the common man is affected.

Regards,
Pon

I agree with Mr. PON. As I take care of various civil projects, I am familiar with some of the methods. Firstly, the design of the building begins with checking the soil condition (strata). Secondly, the design incorporates safety factors, followed by the quality of materials used, workmanship, and in-process checks. At every stage, the structural engineer must visit the site. Avoiding such incidents is the sole responsibility of the owner/builder. Government agencies only become involved after an accident has occurred. For such constructions, the BOCW act shall be applicable.

I recall an incident in Bhuj, Gujarat, on 26th Jan 2000 (or 2001) where many buildings collapsed, resulting in the tragic loss of many school children who were participating in a march on Republic Day. The structural engineers were held accountable for poor design and subsequently punished. I had the opportunity to visit this site after a lengthy period and am pleased to contribute after a long time.

Thanks & Regards,
Sudhir

SPECIAL INVESTIGATION TEAM (SIT) OF CHENNAI CITY POLICE PROBE THE COLLAPSE OF ELEVEN-STOREYED BUILDING AT MOULIVAKKAM

The Hon'ble Chief Minister announced the constitution of a Special Investigation Team (SIT) in Chennai City Police to investigate the collapse of an eleven-storeyed building under construction at Moulivakkam, near Porur, on 28.6.2014. Accordingly, a Special Investigation Team headed by Sridhar, IPS, Joint Commissioner of Police, North Zone, has been constituted and is functioning under the direct supervision of George, IPS, Commissioner of Police, Greater Chennai.

The investigation of this case involves complex engineering and architectural issues, for which the guidance of experts is required by the investigators. Considering the gravity of the case and the need for expert advice, professionals in fields like Structural Engineering, Architecture, and Soil Mechanics from Indian Institute of Technology, Anna University, and other academic institutions, as well as officials from Public Works Departments and related departments, have been included.

So far, eight persons, including the Managing Director of the construction firm, Architect, and Structural Engineer, have been arrested in this case.

Source: Internet.