Preventing Electrocution Deaths in India

First get hold of all your regulations or code regarding electrical safety. If it is inadequate make written proposals of where and why it should be improved.

With regulations in place you should determine why it is not complied with or actively enforced.

What is seen in SA is that although it is not permissible the public break into transformer or distribution box enclosures and do their own connections with flex etc. No law enforcement , education or deaths could so far permanently stop this dangerous practice.

Dear mubarak,

I can understand and appreciate your concern for death due to electrical accident. But as you expressed, it is not that grave a situation as you think. In a large city like Pune where almost one death is reported due to road accident every day, hardly people countable in fingers die of electrocution in a year. Most of these deaths are either due to careless handling of electricity by the victims(few of them are licenced employees of electricity supply agency or contractors). Indian Electricity act provides all safety regulations for carrying out proper electrical installations and its safe handling. If electrical engineers and technicians abide by these rules there is no scope for electrical accident .Every authorised electrical connection is supposed to have complete protective gear.

Now then why accidents happen? it is because of un authorised connections and tampering with regular electrical system by unauthorised persons. The other reason is unauthorised electrical connection due to corruption by employees of electrical supply agency ,local petty political leaders and antisocial elements who are responsible for unsafe connections and theft of electricity.As my experience goes most of the electrical users in India are knowledgeable about it's danger also . So they are careful and afraid to meddle with it .

What suggestion or solutions do you expect from members of this forum( CR4) ?Engineers them self have to take care for implementation of electrical safety rules and compliance of Indian Electricity Act.

All of your answer rates GA credit, but that last line is worth a GA all by itself. I wish I could be allowed to add GA for both.

Regards, CJM

i agree, if the government does not enforce the safety regulations they are just words on paper

Dear Abraham

I agree with you that major reason for such deaths are due to unauthorised operation or connection or tampering of the system. At some places one could even see houses constructed upto 20-30 meters from a 132 kV line. Even those houses are unauthorised.

To be straight, theft, not necessarily of electricity but also of copper, breakers, fuse bases etc., is an important reason why things go wrong. Around 10-12 years back there was a proposal, thru UN, to provide connection at 11kV to farmers at 10 kVA load ( which is generally at 415 V ). It never took off. One of the obvious reasons for shelving the project is that electricity could not be stolen if transmitted at 11 kV.

Thanks and regards

Ashok Toshniwal, Bangalore, India

Thank you for your valuble contribution to this discussion, without straying away from the basic question ... common man to protect his people from electrical hazards which are present around you have to give tips only which can be useful in solving problem at basic level for masses. you are right having assumed "Every authorised electrical connection is supposed to have complete protective gear" and "Indian Electricity act provides all safety regulations for carrying out proper electrical installations and its safe handling"but unfortunately both steps are not implemented.

I am afraid majority of untrained professionals handling electricity ever heard of rules and majority of serving professionals either forgotten or have no respect left to implement these Electricity Rules. I must record here that in a major city in Rajasthan I went asking for RCCB/ELCB and was surprised to find 95% of shop keepers and so called electrical dealers and their employees/technicians did not come back with any answer,instead some offered MCBs and fuses to show that these will do the job.I think conditions in other states may not be much different.

Hope this will explain why I requested this forum members to suggest some more effective solutions.comparing small no. of electrocution deaths with Road accident related deaths figures will not be correct and will not be a good contribution to safety topic.

Dear Mubarak,

I understand your concern for the poor electrical safety norms in Rajastan. The situation may be bad there . It differs from state to state of Indian Union . It is not same standard every where as you think.

You have misunderstood my statement. what ever you stated may me correct. If correct it is a pity. The reason for such a condition is not technical but social (in action, in efficiency, lack of concern for performing their duty by the concerned staff of electricity department and prevailing corruption). This is a social problem to be discussed in local media or to be taken up by local NGO for improvement. Please take up strongly with the authority. Project in local news papers. Some NGOs must take up the issue. Some social organisation should educate people about electrical safety . There s no technical solution.

This is an international technical forum where you can get solutions for technical threads. Hope you get my point.

I totally agree with your concern for lack for safety measures taken for handling electricity in India. This i am writing after many years you have posted and still the standards have not been effectively implemented.

For a common man, it is best to be equipped with basic safety measures like first aid practices, CPR and using AED. These can help a person save a life when in need rather than just waiting for medical services (which come very late in India).

Hope this helped the cause.

The electricity companies must be responsible for at least some of the problems as well as the consumers. As an example I have seen a large (several MVA) 11kV transformer on the pavement (sidewalk) in an Indian city, unfenced with all terminals at face level and uninsulated. This was obviously in service and not just being installed at the time. I could cite plenty of other examples.

Dear Chankley,

You are one hundred percent correct and I agree that accidents happen because of it. The Electricity distribution companies are mostly government controlled bodies and they are under staffed and the engineers and technicians working have many excuse for not carrying out their job properly. The fact is that lot more is to be done to improve the electrical distribution system.The higher authorities when contacted have agreed to this problem but show inability due to financial constrains and poor staff strength and they are now on their way to privatise many work and activity . Still corruption and in adequate supervision stand on the way to improvement. Situation in big cities are slowly improving but the remote villages are still in bad shape. I do not state that there is no problem, there is an important defect in system . I only said the discussion in this CR4 cannot provide any betterment or results. This subject should be properly taken up in local media. That is the right place to project this subject,then only the attention of authority concerned can be drawn for any improvement.