many of the developing countries like India are far behind in implementing occupational hygiene and pollution control measures at work sites. Occupational health and safety have not been at top agenda of small scale manufacturing industry in these countries. India is a population intensive country; the labour available is cheap and illiterate. Proper occupational hygiene practices are generally ignored at workplaces. Personal protective equipments (PPE) for the workers are treated as unwanted rather than necessity and are not sufficiently provided. The workers of these units (SMEs) are mostly migrants from eastern part of the country; therefore they accept the working conditions as a part of job and do not demand for hygiene measures and PPE. As a result the workers of these
units are very much exposed to excessive amount of both physical and chemical pollutants. The present study was undertaken to assess the heat exposure and occupational safety and hygiene practices in casting and forging units (SMEs) of Northern India. Indian Institute of Foundrymen (IIFM) represents the foundry industry and has more than 3500 members. The foundries are supporting Automobile, Machine building, sanitary needs, households needs, etc. 40% of the output of the foundries are for the Automobile sector. The foundry industry has 4500 foundries in India producing around 7 million tons of castings many of them are Tiny/Small/Medium scale. The industry gives employment to more than 500000 directly and three times indirectly. Association of Indian forging industry (AIFI) represents the composition of the Indian forging industry, it can be categorized into four sectors - large, medium, small and tiny. As is the case world over, a major portion of this industry is made up of small and medium units / enterprises (SMEs). About 200 organised and 1000 unorganised forging units in the country spread across Pune, Chennai, Delhi, Ludhiana and Jalandhar. Steel forgings are an integral part of auto industry. The total capacity at present is estimated to be about 1.5 Million tons per annum. As per estimates the industry provides direct employment to about 200,000 people, contributing directly to the livelihood of more than three quarter of a million people. The employer of small scale units are totally lagging behind in providing occupational health and safety to the workers, therefore the manpower employed in small scale casting & forging units are more exposed to occupational noise, heat stress, musculoskeletal strain and dust etc. The major occupational diseases of concern in these units are silicosis, musculoskeletal injuries, pneumoconiosis, chronic obstructive lung diseases, and noise induced hearing loss NIHL.