Kumar Properties and Nyati Group have selected a mobile-based safety platform from Indian company Valueadd Softtech (Vast) to deploy at more than 30 construction sites.

Vast’s SafetyApp enables safety compliance and risk reduction at construction sites and will be used for hazard identification and risk assessment (HIRA), and for getting visibility across multiple sites with digitised processes and workflows.

The app lets users report potential hazards, safety breaches and non-conformities in seconds to enable construction companies to take proactive measures.

Threat to life and personal injury in the construction industry are relatively high. That being so, measures to ensure safety of workers must be a focal point. This is where SafetyApp steps in and provides smooth workflows that can be monitored for overall improvement in the quality and quantity of output.

“Kumar Properties has partnered with Vast SafetyApp with an idea of understanding how we can improve our response towards safety in terms of data collection, and to ensure a proactive approach,” said Rohit Sardesai, vice president at Kumar Properties. “With rising construction incident news across the country, the importance of safety is rapidly increasing. It is now very imperative to have proper training to construction workers including migrant labours. By deploying technology at sites, we want to increase awareness among the construction workers about our vision in terms of construction and companies EHS initiatives.”

Sardesai said to comply with statutory law it needed to keep collecting data related to labour compliances such as name, PF number, BOCW registration and so on.

“We find SafetyApp very promising to collect data and give us an overall dashboard,” said Sardesai. “SafetyApp helps in issuing electronic work permits, raising and tracking NCs to contractors, capturing unsafe acts and unsafe conditions, which result in a safer working environment. We are working closely with Team SafetyApp to enhance some of the functionalities to match the demand of the construction industry. We find SafetyApp an ideal tool to perform all these tasks with minimal effort and it is helping us achieve our objective of insulating our construction sites from accidents and fatal incidents and be compliant with government mandated procedures and filings.”

Kumar Properties Group was established in 1966 and is one of the largest players in Pune’s real estate market with more than 35,000 families living in its 135 completed projects. Kumar Properties has deployed SafetyApp for its ongoing Pune and Bengaluru projects.

Nyati Group also deployed SafetyApp across all its projects. The collaboration between Nyati Group and Vast goes back a few years when Nyati Group deployed the Vast ClientCare post-sales real estate CRM for managing its customer experience.

“At Nyati Group, we are always striving to be the first choice for all our clients, customers, vendors, contractors and employees,” said Ganesh Sirsikar, vice president at Nyati Group. “This can be achieved only by constantly upgrading our mindsets, technological skill sets and having very strong value-based commitments. Keeping this in mind we have been associated with ValueAdd Softtech & Systems to deploy the Nyati Instacare app and the Nyati Safety app; both of these have been very effectively used by us. The Nyati Safety app has been our endeavour to ensure a safe working environment at sites.”

Nyati SafetyApp is deployed at 33 projects across 12 zones and, so far, 31,521 inductions, 149,957 work permits, 158,845 toolbox trainings, and 1310 non-conformities and safety observations have been recorded and resolved using SafetyApp.

“The construction industry is one of the most risk-prone sectors calling for a deeper digital penetration for better control of activities and imposition of systemic safeguards,” said Vast CEO Prashant Upasani. “The largely unskilled workforce of the industry must be appropriately trained to ensure sustained quality results and maintain higher safety standards in the industry. We understood this need while designing the SafetyApp and have added multiple features through the journey, so far in line with industry needs as envisaged by builders and industry experts. We are working with industry experts and authorities with a goal that the SafetyApp should be a synonym of BOCW and safety standards.”

Kaushik Markale, product manager at SafetyApp, added: “SafetyApp is conceived as an answer to the multiple challenges faced by the construction industry. It does away with manual recording and monitoring of work processes and infuses across the board accessibility of data for pre-emptive and timely action in the construction sites. Users of SafetyApp can benefit from the technology and be on the right side of law and save precious lives and money. With innovative safety features, an intuitive interface, and a powerful service providing 24/7 reliability, SafetyApp has what it takes to address the challenges of the construction industry.”