Section 78 of the Regulation on Occupational Health, Safety and Welfare states that Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) has to conform to American National Standards (ANSI), Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) or standards certified by the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) or any standards developed by the Government of Bhutan. For construction, the prescribed standard for the hard hat/helmet is ANSI Z89.1-1986 or BIS CODE 2925 or equivalent.

An employer contravening section 78 shall be liable to pay fines as prescribed in the OHS Regulation. We request employers to refrain from supplying sub-standard PPE, especially, Low-Quality Safety Helmet/Hard Hat to your workers.

Section 167 of the Labour and Employment Act, 2007 requires an enterprise or individual who designs, manufactures, imports or supplies machinery (including equipment) to ensure that machinery is safe and without health risks when properly used.

Section 168 states that a person or business that contravenes Section 167 shall be liable to get the business license suspended in the first instance and cancelled, in the second instance.

Therefore, the Department of Labour (DoL) would like to request that businesses or individuals do not supply low-quality or sub-standard safety helmets and that employers not buy the same for supply to the workers.