2. Overview of the Mining Industry in
India
• The Mining industry in India is a major economic activity which
contributes significantly to the economy of India.
• The GDP contribution of the mining industry varies from 2.2% to
2.5% only but going by the GDP of the total industrial sector it
contributes around 10% to 11%.
• Even mining done on small scale contributes 6% to the entire cost
of mineral production.
• Indian mining industry provides job opportunities to around
700,000 individuals
• India is the largest producer of sheet mica, the third largest
producer of iron ore and the fifth largest producer of bauxite in
the world.
• India's metal and mining industry was estimated to be $106.4bn
Mining In India
3. Overview of the Mining Industry in
India
• The tradition of mining in the region is ancient and underwent
modernization alongside the rest of the world as India gained
independence in 1947.
• The economic reforms of 1991 and the 1993 National Mining
Policy further helped the growth of the mining sector.
• India's minerals range from both metallic and non-metallic types.
• The metallic minerals comprise ferrous and non-ferrous
minerals, while the non-metallic minerals comprise mineral
fuels, precious stones, among others.
• Mining in India depends on over 3,100 mines, out of which over
550 are fuel mines, over 560 are mines for metals, and over 1970
are mines for extraction of non-metals
Mining In India
4. Overview of the Mining Industry in
India
• Unless controlled by other departments of the Government
of India mineral resources of the country are surveyed by the
Indian Ministry of Mines, which also regulates the manner in
which these resources are used. The ministry oversees the
various aspects of industrial mining in the country. Both the
Geological Survey of India and the Indian Bureau of Mines
are also controlled by the ministry.
• Natural gas, petroleum and atomic minerals are exempt
from the various activities of the Indian Ministry of Mines.
Mining In India
5. Geographical distribution
Mineral Belt Location
• North Eastern Peninsular Belt Chota Nagpur plateau and the Orissa
plateau covering the states of Jharkhand,
West Bengal and Orissa.
• Central Belt Chattisgarh, Andhra Pradesh, Madhya
Pradesh and Maharastra
• Southern Belt Karnataka plateau and Tamil Nadu.
• South Western Belt Karnataka and Goa.
• North Western Belt Rajasthan and Gujarat along the Aravali
Range.Mining In India
6. Environmental impact of the Mining
industry
Water
Management
Land use
management
Air pollution
Greenhouse
gases
emissions
Radiation
exposure
Mining In India
7. Water Management
• Open-pit mining requires large amounts of water for
preparation plants and dust suppression.
• To meet this requirement mines acquire (and remove)
surface or groundwater supplies from nearby agricultural or
domestic users, which reduces the productivity of these
operations or halts them.
• These water resources (once separated from their original
environment) are rarely returned after mining, creating a
permanent degradation in agricultural productivity.
• Underground mining has a similar effect, due to a lower
need for dust-suppression water; however, it still requires
sufficient water.
Mining In India
8. Water Management
• Groundwater supplies are adversely affected by surface
mining. These impacts include drainage of usable water from
shallow aquifers; lowering of water levels in adjacent areas
and changes in flow direction within aquifers; contamination
of usable aquifers below mining operations due to
infiltration of poor-quality mine water; and increased
infiltration of precipitation on spoil piles.
• Where coal is present, increased infiltration may result in
– Increased runoff of poor-quality water and erosion from spoil piles
– Recharge of poor-quality water to shallow groundwater aquifers
– Poor-quality water flow to nearby streams
Mining In India
9. Water Management
• This may contaminate both groundwater and nearby
streams for long periods.
• Deterioration of stream quality results from acid mine
drainage, toxic trace elements, high content of dissolved
solids in mine drainage water, and increased sediment loads
discharged to streams.
• When coal surfaces are exposed, pyrite comes in contact
with water and air and forms sulfuric acid. As water drains
from the mine, the acid moves into the waterways, as long
as rain falls on the mine tailings the sulfuric-acid production
continues, whether the mine is still operating or not.
• Surface waters are rendered unfit for agriculture, human
consumption, bathing, or other household uses.
Mining In India
10. Land Use Management
Impact to
land and
surroundings
Waste
management
River water
pollution
Wildlife
Mining In India
11. Impact to Land and Surroundings
• Strip mining severely alters the landscape, which reduces the
value of the natural environment in the surrounding land.
• When mining is allowed, resident human populations must be
resettled off the mine site; economic activities, such as agriculture
or hunting and gathering food and medicinal plants are
interrupted.
• Reclamation of disturbed lands to a land use condition is not
equal to the original use.
• Mining eliminates existing vegetation, destroys the genetic soil
profile, displaces or destroys wildlife and habitat, alters current
land uses, and to some extent permanently changes the general
topography of the area mined
Mining In India
12. Impact to Land and Surroundings
• Dust degrades air quality in the immediate area, has an adverse
impact on vegetative life, and constitutes health and safety
hazards for mine workers and nearby residents.
• In case of mountaintop removal, tops are removed from
mountains or hills to expose minerals underneath. The soil and
rock removed is deposited in nearby valleys, hollows and
depressions, resulting in blocked and contaminated waterways
• Soil disturbance and associated compaction result in conditions
conducive to erosion. Soil removal from the area to be surface-
mined alters or destroys many natural soil characteristics, and
reduces its biodiversity and productivity for agriculture. Soil
structure may be disturbed by pulverization or aggregate
breakdown.
Mining In India
13. Waste Management and River Water
Pollution
• In the low-coal-content areas waste forms Spoil tip- a pile
built of accumulated spoil the overburden or other waste
rock removed during coal and ore mining.
• Mining can have adverse effects on surrounding surface and
ground water if protective measures are not taken. The
result can be unnaturally high concentrations of some
chemicals, such as arsenic, sulfuric acid, and mercury over a
significant area of surface or subsurface.
• Large amounts of water produced from mine drainage, mine
cooling, aqueous extraction and other mining processes
increases the potential for these chemicals to contaminate
ground and surface water
Mining In India
14. Wildlife
• The most direct effect on wildlife is destruction or displacement of
species in areas of excavation and spoil piling.
• Pit and spoil areas are not capable of providing food and cover for
most species of wildlife. Mobile wildlife species like game
animals, birds, and predators leave these areas.
• More sedentary animals like invertebrates, reptiles, burrowing
rodents and small mammals may be destroyed.
• The community of microorganisms and nutrient-cycling processes
are upset by movement, storage, and redistribution of soil.
• Degradation of aquatic habitats is a major impact by surface
mining, and may be apparent many miles from a mining site.
Mining In India
15. Wildlife
• The effects of sediment on aquatic wildlife vary with the
species and the amount of contamination. High sediment
levels can kill fish directly, bury spawning beds, reduce light
transmission, alter temperature gradients, fill in
pools, spread stream flows over wider, shallower areas, and
reduce production of aquatic organisms used as food by
other species. These changes destroy the habitat of valued
species, and may enhance habitat for less-desirable species.
• The presence of acid-forming materials exposed as a result
of surface mining can affect wildlife by eliminating habitat
and by causing direct destruction of some species.
Mining In India
17. Air Emissions and Mercury Emissions
• Most of the Mining Industry releases approximately 20 toxic-
release chemicals, including
arsenic, lead, mercury, nickel, vanadium, beryllium, cadmiu
m, barium, chromium, copper, molybdenum, zinc, selenium
and radium, which are dangerous if released into the
environment.
• Methylmercury, a toxic compound which harms both
wildlife and people who consume freshwater fish.
Mining In India
18. Greenhouse gases emission and Radiation
exposure
• The combustion of coal is the largest contributor to the
human-made increase of CO2 in the atmosphere.
• Coal also contains low levels of uranium, thorium, and other
naturally occurring radioactive isotopes whose release into
the environment may lead to radioactive contamination.
Coal plants emit radiation in the form of radioactive fly ash
which is inhaled and ingested by neighbours, and
incorporated into crops.
Mining In India
19. Indian Background
• India has a predominantly agrarian population
dependent on land and forests for its sustenance and
livelihood, socially, culturally and economically.
• Rural and tribal women are the primary actors in
agriculture, collection of forest produce, in livestock
management apart from nurturing their families.
• It has been accepted as an undisputed fact that
women, rural and tribal, have a very intimate and
symbiotic relationship with the ecology around them
as they are untenably linked to the natural resources
Mining In India
20. Mining in India
• Mining has been a focal industry in all the Five Year Plans
of the country and it could not be perceived as anything
but ‘development’ in demanding people’s forfeiture of
their lands for ‘national prosperity’
• Most minerals and mining operations are found in forest
regions, which are also the habitat for tribal communities.
• Starting from rat hole mining, small legal and illegal
mining, to large-scale mining mostly by the public sector
and since the 90’s by the private sector’s
participation, there are a wide range of problems and
conflicts in relation to mining.
• The problems of local communities, displaced or affected
by mining have had far reaching consequences.
Mining In India
21. Status and Literacy rate of Women in India
• The gender divide and exploitation of women in India
has a history of female infanticide, dowry
deaths, unequal wages, high levels of illiteracy and
mortality, caste-based discrimination and other social
evils.
• The literacy rate for total Indian population is about
52.75% for male and 32.17% for female
• The literacy levels among Scheduled Caste women is a
mere 19% and for Scheduled Tribe women is 14.50%
• In the mineral rich states female literacy is abysmally
poor – 3.46%, 6.88%, 8.29% and 11.75% for
Rajasthan, Andhra Pradesh, Orissa and Jharkhand
respectively.
Mining In India
22. A Pie Chart representing the literacy rate
in India
Mining In India
Men, 52.75%
Women, 32.17%
23. Impact of Mining to Locals in Economic
terms
• With the given background of women’s
status, one can easily surmise the condition of
women displaced and affected by mining.
• In India, people displaced by various projects, is
estimated to be 50 million and of
these, approximately 10 million have been
displaced by mining projects alone.
• Seventy five percent of people displaced have
not yet received any form of compensation or
rehabilitation.
Mining In India
24. Impact of Mining on Locals and Women
• With regard to land, women have no legal rights over lands or natural
resources. The Land Acquisition Act of India is draconian and obsolete
and gives over-riding powers to the state to encroach onto people’s
lands for any ‘public purpose’ including mining.
• The country to this day does not have any Relief & Rehabilitation policy
as a constitutional safeguard for people.
• While the local communities are not consulted for take over of their
lands for any projects, the women are the last to be informed and
neither are their consent or objections ever taken into account.
• Whenever villages have been displaced or affected, women have been
forced out of their land based work and pushed into menial and
marginalised forms of labour as maids and servants, as construction
labourers or into prostitution, which are highly unorganised and socially
humiliating.
Mining In India
25. Impact of Mining on Locals and Women
• While traditional livelihood systems based on land gave them an important role
in agriculture, collection of forest produce, management of livestock and related
activities, the immediate offshoot of mining has been a total destruction of this
role for women both from land-owning communities and agricultural labourers.
• Women displaced by mining, have lost the rights to cultivate their traditional
crops, and forests being cut down for mining, they are unable to collect forest
produce for consumption or for sale.
• Only access to health care for women, which is the forest rich in medicinal
plants, is destroyed leaving them without this important natural support system.
• A large part of the miners wages are spent on medical expenses as companies do
not pay for this, and as a result, they are caught in a vicious web of indebtedness
dragging the whole family into bonded labour. The situation of miners in
Rajasthan is a classic example of this situation.
• Women in search of jobs fall into situations where there is seasonal migration
leading to work insecurity, breaking up of family relations and exposing them to
various social hazards.
Mining In India
26. Impact of Mining on Women
• It has always been the men who received any form of rehabilitation
either in cash or as employment which has led to complete ‘idleness’ in
the economic sphere for women while they wait the whole day long, for
their men to return from the mine-pits.
• When some of the men received employment, the women were forced
to manage the land, and agricultural activities on their own. In such
situations, their drudgery has increased, and has led to situations of
share-cropping and gradually to mortgaging of land.
• Women from land-owning communities have been forced into wage
labour, which is a socially and economically humiliating shift.
• Women are also forced into petty trades or other businesses but the
social taboos of participation in these sectors, their lack of literacy or
skills, exposes them to further exploitation in these trades.
Mining In India
27. Impact of Mining on Women
• Displaced tribal communities who never received any
form of compensation or rehabilitation, have
migrated to bordering states in search of land and
forests. A very clear example is the migration of
tribals from Orissa to the neighbouring state of
Andhra Pradesh where the Khonds had to occupy
lands high up on the hills or encroach forest lands at
the risk of being ‘criminals’ in the eyes of law.
• They have cut down vast stretches of forest for
survival and face the harassment of the forest
department every year and are accused of practicing
‘unsustainable’ agriculture.
Mining In India
28. Women as a Mine Labour
• Where displaced women were absorbed into mining related activities, it is mostly
in the small private or unorganized sector where women are the first to be
retrenched, have no work safety measures, are susceptible to serious health
hazards which also affects their reproductive health, and are exposed to sexual
exploitation.
• The large-scale mines, which are shifting to technology dependence, have no
scope for women’s participation as they are illiterate, lack technical skills and
face cultural prejudices. Where women formed 30-40% of the workforce in
mining, they have been reduced to less than 12% and in the coal sector alone, to
5%. Schemes like VRS have been thrust upon women so as to retrench them first.
• While the largescale mining has no space for women, the small-scale sector
absorbs them only as contract or bonded labour under highly exploitative
conditions. Wages are always less than those for men, they do not get a paid
holiday even one day in a week or during pregnancy or childbirth, no work
equipment is provided, there are no toilets or work facilities. The women are
exposed to the exploitation, physical and sexual, of the mine-owners, contractors
and other men. They have to walk back miles to return to their villages and are
vulnerable to assault on the way.
Mining In India
29. Women as a Mine Labour
• The women suffer from several occupational illnesses
right from respiratory
problems, silicosis, tuberculosis, leukaemia, arthritis,
to reproductive problems. They work with toxic and
hazardous substances without any safety.
• Whereas women could take their infants to the fields
or to the forest earlier, women working in mines have
to leave their children behind at homes, unattended.
If they do manage to take the children, they have to
expose them to high levels of dust and noise
pollution, are susceptible to accidents due to blasting
or falling into mine pits
Mining In India
30. Violence Against Women in Mining Area’s
• The most hard-hitting reality of a mining town is the
predominant existence of violence against women –
violence by the men within the community, by men from
outside who are truck drivers, traders, migrant miners and
others, by company hired mafia, staff, visitors, by the
politicians, and most of all by the state machinery.
• It is a well known fact that in the coal mining belt, for
instance, the nexus between the coal mafia, mining
companies, political parties and government machinery is
too close for any comfort of the communities.
Prostitution, trafficking and other forms of abuses on
women are actively promoted by all these collective forces
making it impossible for women to get any justice.
Mining In India
31. Violence Against Women in Mining Area’s
• The social and behavioural deviance in mining towns as a result of mixed and
external populations invading culturally cohesive communities where companies
have done precious little to contain these trends has thrown women into totally
inhibiting situations.
• Besides, the fact that the state has no earnestness to pursue issues of atrocities
on women has only encouraged mining companies and mining societies to abuse
women with wantonness.
• The truth is also that the companies have neither the sensitivity nor the remedies
to prevent such shifts in social patterns towards women. What is however, most
alarming, is the growing corporate violence against women in communities
protesting for their rights in mining regions or fighting against entry of mining
companies into their villages.
• With the support of the state machinery, mining companies are using brutal
methods of suppressing people’s protests where women are also not spared. The
incidence of police firing, killings, false criminal cases and harassment of
communities especially on women has in gloriously increased. There have been
instances where women have been locked up in police custody even when they
have infants to nurse.
Mining In India
32. Conclusion
In traditional societies, nature is not put up for sale or negotiation. Neither are
women
negotiable commodities. The theories of economics start from respect for nature and
the
interdependence of man and nature. It is based on balancing man’s (and women’s)
needs
with ecological sustainability, which is the primary principle of extracting natural
resources. In today’s situation of economics, the mining industry and governments
have
grossly violated this principle. Economics starts with over extraction of one natural
resource (minerals) at the cost of other resources for the sustainability of the
industry and
not of communities. It starts with the assumptions that development requires
compromising on social justice, especially when it comes to women. Most of the
countries which have allowed their lands to be exploited for minerals have some of
the
worst indices of human development
Mining In India
33. Conclusion
They also have the worst indices of gender justice.
From a gender perspective, what does mining have to offer women - atrocities, violence,
degradation of social and economic status, depriving them of any decent livelihood and
which makes them powerless compared to their traditional systems, however modest. The
MMSD report of IIED in its section on women, admits the widespread negative impacts
of mining on women and offers only solutions like ‘naturalising’ mining societies, by
which they mean that mining companies should encourage miners to live with their
families in the mining towns. It urges women to participate in community programmes
of the mining companies. However, for the women from the communities in India a few
bags of seeds, a few packets of medicines, a training programme on micro-credit or an
awareness camp on health are no compensation to what they have lost for mining or what
future mining has to offer to them. Therefore, they have an important challenge to pose –
can a gender audit be carried out in mining regions and prove how sustainable mining is
to women?
Mining In India