Abstract
Academic institutions have a critical role to play in enhancing the importance of human reliability programs. It is an undeniable fact that there is a scarce domestic narrative on critical issues like human reliability program and its relevance to sensitive infrastructure. Most of the sources that are generally referred to while accounting for the relevance of human reliability programs are primarily from the Western domain. The academic community has a significant responsibility to develop a meaningful narrative on India’s critical requirements premised upon a framework that pertains to potential threats and vulnerabilities emanating from within the critical infrastructures. This chapter attempts to explore the importance of human reliability programs, especially during the prevailing COVID-19 period. Has the pandemic and its ensuing consequences resulted in heightened concerns regarding the effective implementation of the human reliability program? This chapter also examines whether the human reliability program is being severely challenged by advanced technologies with complex designs being widely used within the nuclear industry. Academic institutions have a responsibility to be a conduit between the nuclear industry and the public by generating confidence among the latter about safety and security aspects of the nuclear industry.
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Notes
- 1.
See Baley-Downs (1986, pp. 661–665).
- 2.
Hazardous work ethics involves jobs which are dangerous jobs that expose employees to significant physical risks like unhealthy working conditions that can cause in permanent disability, ill health and psychological damage. It may also affect injury or even potential death. The general attitude towards such physically dangerous jobs is that the employees are informed about the risks and they are provided reasonable safety measures and adequate compensation as incentives to take the jobs. On ethical grounds, such industries while exposing people to such degrees of physical risks must ensure that it is for a good social cause.
- 3.
Several children from middle school standard are regularly invited from specific classes spanning over almost a week. The course curriculum pertains to issues on nuclear and radiological security. The objective is to spread awareness about sensitive nuclear materials from a very early stage. The author interacted with various school children attending the courses on nuclear and radiological security held by GCNEP in Anushaktinagar, Mumbai in 2016.
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Kazi, R. (2023). Relevance of Human Reliability Program: The Role of Academic Institutions. In: Chirayath, S.S., Sai Baba, M. (eds) Human Reliability Programs in Industries of National Importance for Safety and Security. Risk, Reliability and Safety Engineering. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-5005-8_10
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