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AIM: A safe injection does no harm; but unsafe injection practices are a plague of many health systems. The most affected category of health care providers are the nursing personnel. METHOD: This hospital based cross sectional observational study was conducted among 80 nurses involved in patient care to assess their knowledge regarding safe injection practices and to assess certain aspects of their practice while administering injection and disposal of the disposables. RESULTS: About 52.5% subjects were protected by hepatitis B vaccination. During the last 6 months, 6.3% nurses got accidental needle stick injury three or more times. About 12.5% study subjects washed their hands with soap and water before administering injection. About 60% of the nursing personnel maintained correct procedure during giving injection; while sterile gloves were used only by 3.7% nurses. During disposal of used needles, in 57.5% cases hub cutters were used, while needles were recapped in 42.5% of cases. Used syringes were disposed off correctly in 41.2% of cases. CONCLUSION: There is a need to educate, train and motivate service providers in proper method of handling injection equipments. A local policy and surveillance programme based on the WHO guidelines might be helpful in this situation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]