NATIONAL INSTRUCTIONAL
MEDIA INSTITUTE, CHENNAI

Personal Protective Equipment (PPE)
The Devices, equipment, or clothing used or worn by the
employees, as a last resort, to protect against hazards in
the workplace. The primary approach in any safety effort
is that the hazard to the workmen should be eliminated or
controlled by engineering methods rather than protecting
the workmen through the use of personal protective
equipment (PPE).
Engineering methods could include design change,
substitution, ventilation, mechanical handling, automation,
etc. In situations where it is not possible to introduce any
effective engineering methods for controlling hazards, the
workman shall use appropriate types of PPE.
The Factories Act, 1948 and several other labour legislations
1996 have provisions for effective use of appropriate types
of PPE. Use of PPE is an important.
Ways to ensure workplace safety and use personal
protective equipment (PPE) effectively.
• Workers to get up-to-date safety information from the
regulatory agencies that oversees workplace safety in
their specific area.
• To use all available text resources that may be in work
area and for applicable safety information on how to
use PPE best.
• When it comes to the most common types of personal
protective equipment, like goggles, gloves or bodysuits,
these items are much less effective if they are not worn
at all times, or whenever a specific danger exists in a
work process. Using PPE consistently will help to avoid
some common kinds of industrial accidents.
• Personal protective equipment is not always enough
to protect workers against workplace dangers. Knowing
more about the overall context of your work activity
can help to fully protect from anything that might
threaten health and safety on the job.
• Inspection of gear thoroughly to make sure that it has
the standard of quality and adequately protect the user
should be continuously carried out

Categories of PPEs
Depending upon the nature of hazard, the PPE is broadly
divided into the following two categories:
1 Non-respiratory: Those used for protection against
injury from outside the body, i.e. for protecting the head,
eye, face, hand, arm, foot, leg and other body parts
2 Respiratory: Those used for protection from harm due
to inhalation of contaminated air.
The guidelines on ‘Personal Protective Equipment’ is issued
to facilitate the plant management in maintaining an
effective programme with respect to protection of persons
against hazards, which cannot be eliminated or controlled
by engineering methods listed in table1

Care and maintenance of pliers 

• Do not use pliers as hammers. 

• Do not use pliers to cut large sized copper or aluminium
wires and hard steel wires of any size.

• While using the pliers avoid damages to the insulation
of hand grips.

Care and maintenance

 • Never use the neon tester for voltage higher than the
specified range.

 • While testing see the circuit is completed through the
body. In case if you are using rubber soled shoes, the
earthing of the body could be provided by touching the
wall by one hand.

 • Use the screwdriver tipped neon tester for light duty
work only.

 • Lubricate hinged portions.

Introduction
Electricity is one of the today’s most useful sources of
energy. Electricity is of utmost necessity in the modern
world of sophisticated equipment and machinery.
Electricity in motion is called electric current. Whereas the
electricity that does not move is called static electricity.
Examples of static electricity
• Shock received from door knobs of a carpeted room.
• Attraction of tiny paper bits to the comb.
Structure of matter
Electricity is related to some of the most basic building
blocks of matter that are atoms (electrons and protons). All
matter is made of these electrical building blocks, and,
therefore, all matter is said to be ‘electrical’.
Atom
Matter is defined as anything that has mass and occupies
space. A matter is made of tiny, invisible particles called
molecules. A molecule is the smallest particle of a
substance that has the properties of the substance. Each
molecule can be divided into simpler parts by chemical
means. The simplest parts of a molecule are called atoms.
Basically, an atom contains three types of sub-atomic
particles that are of relevance to electricity. They are the
electrons, protons and neutrons. The protons and neutrons
are located in the centre, or nucleus, of the atom, and the
electrons travel around the nucleus in orbits.
Atomic structure
The Nucleus
The nucleus is the central part of the atom. It contains the
protons and neutrons in equlal numbrs shown in Fig 1.
Protons
The proton has a positive electrical charge. (Fig 1) It is
almost 1840 times heavier than the electron and it is the
permanent part of the nucleus; protons do not take an
active part in the flow or transfer of electrical energy