Student
Dissertation 2nd Batch 
Case of Construction Workers in Niketan, Dhaka City, Bangladesh
Susan Nakuti
Abstract
"Blood is the price of wealth and the construction workers pay in
full"! So read the title of a document written by Jared Philips regarding the problems on construction sites today especially in the third world. The most brutal accident described in this thesis involved a young worker, about 28 years old, who fell from the sixth floor of a building and died instantly because he had not carefully fastened his safety belt while he hang uncertainly supporting himself by the bamboo scaffolds outside the building. One life was lost in a matter of seconds! How far would the application of simple low cost safety measures such as safety information charts on sites go to save many others in the third world that risk their lives in order to put food on the table for their families? Besides the construction industry invests a lot of money to have a good product for their customer. A pinch of these resources may be worthwhile if invested in the lives of those who risk theirs to have the wealthy living comfortably. It doesn’t have to cost blood.
The essence of the study was to explore the perception of safety by laborers in the industry and identify existing safety measures if any in order to determine whether or not there is unnecessary risks taken and if there can be simple ways of improving the safety of workers. This study done in Niketan, a residential area in Dhaka city, Bangladesh.
