Ceylon Oxygen excels at National Occupational Safety Awards

Radesh Daluwatte,Managing Director of Ceylon Oxygen Limited accepting the Award from Labour  Minister W.D.J. Senevirathne

Ceylon Oxygen Limited (COL), a subsidiary of leading gases and engineering company, The Linde Group, was adjudged the sectoral award winner for ‘Transport Sector Safety’ at the recent National Occupational Safety & Health Excellence Awards – 2016 held at the Nelum Pokuna Theatre. 
The award was presented by the Minister of Labour & Trade Union Relations, W.D.J. Senevirathne in the presence of the Prime Minister, Ranil Wickramasighe, who was the Chief Guest at the occasion. 
Radesh Daluwatte, Managing Director of COL, accepted the award on behalf of the Ceylon Oxygen team. Excellence Awards are presented by the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health (NOSH) in partnership with the Ministry of Labour & Trade Union Relations and the Department of Labour to encourage Sri Lankan industries to maintain a healthy and safe workforce while improving productivity. 
Occupational Safety & Health is important in protecting human rights among the working population the world over. The objectives of the NOSH Excellence Awards include inculcating a safety culture in the industry and the workforce while promoting productivity and minimizing occupational injuries. It is an essential pre-requisite to becoming a world class business.  
Radesh Daluwatte commented, “Winning the Excellence Award gives us great pride and demonstrates that the hard work and investments we are making are effective in keeping our people and the community safe. We believe that with the right training, equipment and work culture, every incident is preventable. We will continue to uphold stringent safety standards in our day-to-day operations, and invest in safety training and technologies from globally best industry practices to ensure the safest operations and sustainable business practices.”
COL is the leading industrial and medical gas supplier in Sri Lanka, operating an extensive fleet of vehicles delivering to their customers gases products, mainly medical gases, liquid gases and compressed gases in cylinders, totaling to almost 100,000 kilometers of deliveries made a month. 
Sanjeevi Jayathilake, Head of Safety at COL, said, “Sri Lankan roads have an average of seven fatal road transport accidents a day. At COL, we employ the best practice standards in driver training, scheduling of delivery routes and maintenance procedures. Transport safety responsibility does not rest solely on our drivers, but an agenda that every one in the company is responsible for, to stay safe and keep each other safe.”   
Anura Rathnayake, Manager for Transport and Logistics at COL, explained, “Safe, incident-free journeys do not happen by chance. Behaviourial training is one of the most important tools in shaping safe driving techniques and behaviours.  Every one of our drivers is trained in applying defensive driving techniques. In recent years, we equipped our trucks with in-cabin cameras and on-board computers. These technologies monitor our drivers’ experience on the roads and their driving techniques. At the end of every trip, we use the data to coach our drivers what they are doing right, and where they can improve. We also use the data to monitor road conditions and make adjustments to delivery routes or send out alerts should there be hazards. These are some of the best practices that have raised our transport safety standards.”