The Platform for Safety in Apparel and Footwear Industry (PSAFI), a new collaborative platform created by the worker safety programme The Life and Building Safety Initiative (LABS), aims to promote fire, electrical, and building safety as well as sustainable development in India’s apparel and footwear industry.
The platform aims to offer a dependable and impartial venue for stakeholders in the industry to meet, talk about, and exchange ideas on resolving safety challenges in the industry. The project intends to foster cooperation between governments, employers, employees, and their organisations as well as a preventative safety culture.
At the launch event of PSAFI, LABS spokesperson Pramit Chanda said: “For us, some of the key objectives of the platform include identifying opportunities to scale interventions, improving the management of building safety risks, transparency in reporting, promoting gender empowerment and driving positive changes in safe working conditions in factories and industrial parks across the country and the manufacturing sector.”
Prajakta L Verma, joint secretary, ministry of textiles, the government of India, added: “There are a lot of challenges around worker safety, and especially the safety of women workers, which also presents an opportunity to make improvements.”
To create a plan for the Indian apparel and footwear industry’s safer and more sustainable future, experts, stakeholders, and representatives from the sector, the government, and workers’ organisations gathered.
PSAFI welcomes all interested parties to join the platform and contribute to the group efforts to improve safety in the Indian apparel and footwear sector. This includes business experts, policymakers, workers’ organisations, and other stakeholders.
