Preventing avoidable asbestos-related disease through early, accurate detection.

Asbestos-related disease carries a latency of ten to forty years, so an exposure prevented today is only measured decades later. The one actionable control point is accurate identification of fibre type and airborne concentration before people are exposed. Our goal is to make that measurement reliable and available across Indian workplaces.

• Quantify airborne respirable fibres by Phase Contrast Microscopy (PCM) using the WHO 1997 membrane filter method, assessed against the 0.1 f/cc limit in the Second Schedule of the Factories Act, 1948.
• Confirm fibre identity by Polarised Light Microscopy (PLM) with dispersion staining, and resolve thin or ambiguous fibres by TEM/EDS where PCM cannot discriminate.
• Report under NABL accreditation to ISO/IEC 17025, so occupational health records carry evidential weight.

Making safe work a documented condition of employment, not a discretionary benefit.

Decent work is unattainable where exposure goes unmeasured, and demolition, shipbreaking, construction, and thermal insulation trades carry the heaviest asbestos burden in India. Our goal is to give employers the exposure data their statutory duties require, and to extend monitoring to contract and informal workers who are rarely covered.

• Conduct personal and area air monitoring for asbestos-handling operations under the Factories Act, 1948 and the Building and Other Construction Workers Act, 1996.
• Provide pre-work and post-work clearance monitoring for removal contractors, so worker re-entry is authorised on measured evidence rather than assumption.
• Maintain traceable chain-of-custody and retained sample records that support both employer compliance and worker compensation claims.

Building analytical capability so Indian industry can be assessed to international standards at home.

Sound infrastructure decisions require laboratory capability that does not depend on shipping samples abroad. Our goal is to widen domestic access to electron-microscopy-grade asbestos analysis and to keep our methods current as international standards evolve.

• Extend electron-microscopy capability — TEM/EDS to ISO 10312 (direct transfer) and ISO 13794 (indirect transfer) for ambient air, with SEM/EDS for morphology and elemental confirmation — so this work need not leave India.
• Work to ISO 22262-1 for qualitative determination of asbestos in bulk construction materials.
• Sustain NABL scope extension, proficiency testing participation, and documented analyst competency verification as a continuing programme.

Ensuring renovation and demolition do not disperse asbestos into the surrounding community.

A large share of the older building stock in India contains asbestos cement sheeting, insulation, and boards. Disturbing those materials without a survey converts a contained hazard into an airborne one that reaches well beyond the site boundary. Our goal is to make pre-demolition surveys and boundary monitoring routine rather than exceptional.

• Deliver pre-renovation and pre-demolition asbestos surveys with representative bulk sampling and PLM identification.
• Run perimeter and background air monitoring during removal to verify that fibres are not migrating beyond the controlled work zone.
• Issue post-abatement clearance against defined pass criteria before a building is re-occupied.

Closing the loop on asbestos waste, from identification through to lawful disposal.

Asbestos waste is scheduled hazardous waste in India, and mismanagement at end-of-life undoes every control achieved during use. Our goal is to make waste classification an evidence-based step rather than an assumption, and to keep mislabelled material out of the supply chain.

• Classify suspect materials before disposal so waste is correctly consigned under the Hazardous and Other Wastes (Management and Transboundary Movement) Rules, 2016.
• Verify that substitute and imported materials are genuinely asbestos-free before they enter production or construction.
• Support CPCB-aligned documentation for transport, treatment facility acceptance, and final disposal records.