EHS software is a system that keeps a plant's environment, health and safety records in one place. It holds incidents, hazard and risk assessments, legal obligations, permits, training, inspections and the actions that follow. An Indian plant uses it to show an inspector, an auditor or a customer what happened, what was decided and who closed it. Some sources write HSE or HSEQ for the same thing.
The law it has to follow has changed
The Occupational Safety, Health and Working Conditions Code, 2020 (the OSH Code) came into force on 21 November 2025, as reported by the Press Information Bureau (PIB). In its summary, the Ministry of Labour describes the Code as replacing 13 central labour laws with one. Legal commentary such as this repeal list names the Factories Act, 1948 and the Building and Other Construction Workers Act, 1996 among them; the Gazette text is the authority. Check any guide that quotes Factories Act section numbers against the Code.
What the Code changes for a plant
The PIB summary lists four duties that change what a plant records:
| Duty under the OSH Code | What the plant must be able to show | Where software holds it |
|---|---|---|
| Safety committee in a factory with 500 or more workers, a building and construction employer with 250 or more, or a mine employer with 100 or more | Members from employer and workers, meeting records, decisions | Meeting minutes and the action tracker |
| Free annual health check-up for employees | Who was due, who was examined, what was found | Training and health records |
| Appointment letters in the prescribed format | Each employee's letter with wages and social security details | Document store |
| Registers: 84 under the old laws, 8 under the Code, kept electronically, per PIB | Up-to-date registers that match the shop floor | Reports and exports |
According to the same summary, the Code also lets the government extend its coverage to hazardous establishments with even one employee, introduces improvement notices and compounding of offences, and allows third-party audit and certification for classes of establishments. Source: Ministry of Labour via PIB, OSH Code summary, 22 November 2025.
The summary leaves detail to rules, such as who is eligible for the health check-up and how often it recurs. Check the central and your state's rules before you configure any schedule.
What EHS software covers
A full system has about ten parts. Not every plant needs all of them on day one.
- Incidents and near misses: report, investigate, classify, close.
- Hazard identification and risk assessment (HIRA): a register of hazards by area, with a risk score and a control for each.
- Legal and compliance register: each obligation, its owner, its due date and its evidence.
- Permits and isolation: permit to work, lockout and tagout, job safety analysis.
- Training and competency: who needs which course, and when it lapses.
- Audits and inspections: checklists, findings and photographs.
- Action tracker: one list of every open action from every source above.
- Environment data: energy, water, waste and emissions entries for the reports your customers ask for.
- Contractor management: induction and site access for workers who are not on your payroll.
- Dashboards and reports: open actions, overdue items and incident rates by site.
The action tracker matters most. An incident report that creates no tracked action is a document, not a control.
Who uses it, and for what
Different roles open the system for different reasons.
- Shop-floor supervisors log incidents, near misses and observations, usually from a phone.
- The EHS officer investigates, rates the risk and assigns actions.
- Department heads close the actions that belong to their area.
- The plant head reads open and overdue items before a review meeting.
- HR feeds in joiners and leavers, so training records follow the workforce.
- Auditors and inspectors ask for records, so the system must produce them with their history.
Each role sees only what its work needs. A contractor supervisor should not see another contractor's incident report, and a site manager should not edit the corporate legal register.
What goes wrong without it
Four failures repeat in plants that run safety on files and chat groups. An incident is reported verbally and never recorded. A permit expires and nobody notices. A training certificate lapses the week before an audit. An action from last year's inspection is still open because it lived in one person's notebook. Each one is a gap in records, not in intent, and each is cheap to prevent once the records sit in one system with due dates.
Where the ISO safety standard fits
ISO 45001:2018 is the international standard for an occupational health and safety management system. It applies to any organisation, whatever its size, and it covers worker risk, not product safety or property damage. The standard sets no performance targets and no fixed system design. A claim of conformity is valid only when every requirement is met without exclusion. Source: ISO 45001:2018 scope, AFNOR standards shop.
Software does not certify a plant. It keeps the evidence an auditor will ask for: the risk register, the legal register, training records, inspection results and corrective actions with dates. The certificate comes from an audit body.
Spreadsheet or software?
Spreadsheets hold up while one person keeps all the records and the plant has one site. They fail at three points: when two people edit the same file, when a record must be shown with its history, and when an open action needs a reminder to an owner who has left. Move to software when any of these has already happened.
Seven tests for a plant
Put these to any vendor, in any country of origin:
- Offline. Can a supervisor log an incident on a phone without network and sync it later? Mines, basements and remote construction sites can lose coverage.
- Where the data sits. On-premise, in a cloud region in India, or abroad? Name it in writing.
- Contractor workers. Can the system hold induction and permits for people who are not employees?
- Multi-site view. Can a head office compare sites, while a site manager sees only their own?
- Evidence export. Can you export a register, with history, to a format an inspector accepts?
- Closed loop. Does every incident, finding and audit point lead to a tracked action with an owner and date?
- Leaving. Can you export all records in an open format if you stop using it?
Where Brihat EHS fits
Brihat EHS runs on your own plant network, with ten core modules from incidents and hazard assessment to a legal register, training, audits, a central action tracker and an offline mobile app. Price depends on named users and sites.
See Brihat EHS for the module list, or all products.