mining in rajasthan
DESCRIPTION
Mining In RajasthanA Study Of Patterns & ParadigmsTarun Kanti BoseE-mail:[email protected] Blog:www.tarunbose.blogspot.com Published by Mines Labour Protection CampaignRajasthan, India's largest state, is home to many of the country's very rich as well as a large section of the abject poor. Livelihoods range from industrial activity, trade and commerce to agrarian activity include agriculture, horticulture and animal husbandry.Exploitation of natural resources like minerals is also a reasonably large-scale activity. While a lot has been researched and written about conventional livelihoods in Rajasthan and their impact on the populace; the activity of mining minerals and ores, and the impact this is having on the fragile ecosystems of the desert state, its social frameworks, and the tenuous economic balance in the state's mining belts is less prolific.TRANSCRIPT
Mining In Rajasthan
A Study Of Patterns & Paradigms
Tarun Kanti BoseE-mail:[email protected]
Blog:www.tarunbose.blogspot.com
Published by
Curtain Raiser
ajasthan, India's largest state, is home to many of the
country's very rich as well as a large section of the abject
poor. Livelihoods range from industrial activity, trade and
commerce to agrarian activity which would include agriculture,
horticulture and animal husbandry. Exploitation of natural resources
like minerals is also a reasonably large-scale activity. While a lot has
been researched and written about conventional livelihoods in
Rajasthan and their impact on the populace; the activity of mining
minerals and ores, and the impact this is having on the fragile
ecosystems of the desert state, its social frameworks, and the tenuous
economic balance in the state's mining belts is less prolific.
R
Nature has endowed Rajasthan with several rich mineral
deposits. Perusal of available records shows that sixty-four kinds of
metallic and non-metallic minerals, ores and deposits are exploited in
the state. The workforce that is employed in extracting and
processing these natural resources in the state’s mining industry (both
organised and unorganised) is second only to agriculture, which
accounts for the largest chunk in the state. A series of livelihood
crises precipitated and perpetrated by abject failure of agriculture on
the one hand, and degradation of pastoral land due to a variety of
reasons on the other, compounded further by recurring and perennial
drought over the past several years, has left the rural populace with
no option but to work the mines that litter the landscape. Over 3.1
million workers, predominantly adivasis and dalits, toil 12 to 13 hours
a day on an average, in working conditions that are described as
hazardous at best.
Given the largely unsustainable, unscientific, and unorganised
nature of these activities, these mine workers are also prone to a
number of occupational hazards including the onset of life-threatening
diseases and crippling physical injuries resulting from the lack of
adequate health-care measures and mine safety arrangements.
Denied access to basic medicare facilities and other statutory benefits
that organised labour normally takes for granted, mine workers here
must invest their sweat and blood for virtually zero returns, in fiercely
hot summers as well as freezing winters. As a consequence, the rich
get richer and the poor get poorer, with the coffers of the mine owners
get filled, and the mine working communities getting not only
progressively impoverished, but also suffering from reduced life spans.
Violations of labour laws and statutory safety measures abound
and are rampant in the mining areas in the state. Mines often operate
on outright illegal basis or on long-expired leases; dumping of mine
debris is often haphazard, leading to destruction of fragile ecosystems
where the waste products of one process do not constitute the raw
material for the next. Business practices are often questionable, with
mine workers getting paid much less than the minimum assured wage;
and work conditions are hazardous, as mentioned earlier. These are
but a few of the several glaring instances of irregularities and
objectionable practices in this economic activity that provides a
precarious livelihood to a large section of the labour population of the
state. So much so that it may be said that the mining industry in the
state is today deriving and garnering its profitability purely through
unsustainable exploitation of scarce natural resources and the over-
exploitation of its productive human resource.
To elaborate further on this, in an overwhelming majority of the
mines in the state, the mining methodology is characterised by
intensive and erratic operations, is without a scientific basis, and the
technology used is quite primitive. Costs are kept low mainly due to
above practices in tandem with a tradition of paying the labour class
much less than is rightful, making them work for longer hours, the
extraction of resources far exceeding lease limits, clandestine mining
and the running of fly-by-night operations, frequent non-payment of
cess/royalty etc.
To a large extent, this state of affairs is also aided by lax
enforcement of laid down laws and norms for mining by the state's
mining department, which lacks both the political will as well as the
required wherewithal to monitor the working of a couple of thousand
leases. All this has been adding to the oppressive working conditions
and shadow existence of a large number of people who are eking out
their livelihood through resort to seasonal mining activity in the state.
As mentioned earlier, the state is endowed with a wide range of
mineral resources that offers considerable potential for future, if
exploited properly. In its 'museum of minerals', as many as 64
metallic and non-metallic minerals are showcased. A wide spectrum of
non-metallic compounds like gypsum bentonite, marble, fuller's earth,
siliceous earth, white clay, silica-rich sands, limestone, yellow ochre,
selenite, jasper, lignite, asbestos, granite, sandstone, etc., account for
a major share of state's mineral resources, and are distributed
throughout its several regions. The state also has rich deposits of
metallic ores like tungsten, zinc and copper in some regions. In
addition, the state has some pockets where lignite coal is available in
plenty.
Apart from these endowments, the state has enormous
occurrence of stone used for building, like marble, granite, sandstone,
and limestone. Rajasthan is also a leading producer of soapstone,
gypsum, rock phosphate, calcite, wollastonite, emerald, jasper and
gem garnet.
Let us take a look here at the topography of the state, its natural
wealth and its characteristic features. Rajasthan has a total area of
3,42,239 square kilometres of land within its domain. Out of this,
three fifths of the land in the state is sandy desert. Forests and
woodland comprise a total of 60,506 square kilometres, while 15,429
lakh hectares is said to be under agriculture. Forest and land under
pasture is gradually shrinking in the state, due to population pressure
and unsustainable practices like those mentioned in mining activities.
Most mineral deposits in the state are concentrated all along the
Aravali range that runs through large parts of the state and mining
activity is widespread here. At present, official records mention that
there are 33,199 mines of varying sizes that occupy approximately 4
lakh hectares of land in the state. The state government earns direct
revenue of INR 271 crores, and an even larger sum as indirect revenue
from these mines every year.
Though mining in the state has vast potential, 95% of the
activity in this industry today is controlled by relatively small units in
the unorganised sector, which is primarily responsible for the
hazardous nature of the mining activity. Lack of scale economies and
the absence of vertical integration as well as backward and forward
linkages have belied both the creation of proper infrastructure as well
as the adoption of appropriate technologies and safety methodologies.
As a result, private contractors and mine owners have tended to
adopt shoddy and unscientific methods to operate their mines and
keep them running, and the inadequacies of the state monitoring
machinery has contributed to unethical practices and the rampant
destruction of the state's habitat, as well as its mineral wealth.
As per several independent estimates, the unorganized mining
sector in Rajasthan is said to employ more than 25 lakh workers, but
mine owners and contractors are loathe to admit this and would like to
obfuscate this fact, tending to conceal this statistic from all and
sundry, including the government. This is manifest in the perusal of
government records, which reflect a figure of a mere 6 lakh workforce
occupied with mining in the state. Concealment of the actual scale of
employment in this industry is seen as a deliberate attempt by mine
owners and contractors to bypass labour laws and evade other
restrictions.
This pervasive cover-up operation is so palpable that it is a
practice in the sector not to write real names of workers in the muster
records. The blatant use of a ‘hire and fire’ policy is also very
prevalent, which ensures that no worker can stake claim to permanent
appointment, which brings several entitlements along with it as per
labour laws of the country. Ignorance about wage records,
employment procedures, ESI, PF, leave and group insurance
entitlements and their rights under the Workmen’s Compensation Act,
etc., has made the position of millions of mine workers in the state
totally untenable. As a result, they have been rendered vulnerable to
ruthless exploitation at the hands of mine owners, which has further
been reinforced by the government’s lukewarm response to their
plight.
Indigenous People & Mining
ndigenous people, especially the adivasis and the dalits, have
traditionally conserved nature, acting as protectors of nature in
their self-assumed social role as ecosystem trustees. This they
have done through the ages, despite shortages and scarcities, which
bespeak their tolerance, love for nature, resilience and adherence to
traditional wisdom. These value-systems and qualities of the rural
poor in the state are today getting progressively eroded, due to
protracted periods of recurrent drought, and the failure of agriculture
to provide a decent and sustainable livelihood. This gradually
worsening situation in the rural hinterlands has perforce coerced
indigenous people like the adivasis and the dalits to opt for either
trans-migration or work in the mines in order to ensure their very
survival.
I
Painful indeed has been this journey of the indigenous
population, whom the trajectory of development has forced to evolve
from being the dignified trustees of nature to lead an undignified life
as unorganised labour in the mines that have sprung up in their milieu;
often at odds with whatever they believed as inviolate in their natural
surroundings. Bhils, Gameti, Kharadi, Koted, Damor, Pargi, Meghwal,
Gujjar, Khatik, Regar, Kohli, Kahar, Balai, Bajara, Meena and other
castes/tribes living in the Aravalis constitute the majority of the work
force in the mines today, where unregulated mining is not only
destroying nature's fine equilibrium, but is also threatening the life,
culture and social milieu of the adivasis.
The Mines As Killing Fields
ccupationally, the mines and stone quarries of Rajasthan
embody some of the most primitive of practices, and are
highly exploitative in the nature of their operations. This
state of affairs has earned them the infamous sobriquet of being
“Killing Fields”, where the harvest being reaped by its human
workforce is often a harvest of disfigurement, disease, and premature
death.
O
Accidents are a frequent occurrence at the mines here, as most
of the work is done manually, with primitive and rudimentary tools like
heavy hammers and chisels. Often heavy slabs of stone fall on
workers, resulting in serious and crippling injuries. The unorganised
mine workers do not get any medical compensation for injuries
sustained at work. To the contrary, workers are often deprived of
wages if they are unable to report for work due to sickness or injury.
Besides being prone to grievous injuries due to lack of proper
safety measures, working under hazardous and insecure
circumstances in the numerous mine fields of Rajasthan is also the
cause behind the shortening of life-spans for millions of workers in this
sector. The number of fatal accidents, which have evidenced a sharp
increase, is alarming at best. The State’s Mineral Policy, implemented
in the year 1994, with its exclusive emphasis on exploitation of the
state's vast mineral wealth, sans any clauses that enforce safe and
sustainable mining, or ensure the well-being and equitable
employment of the workforce, has further reinforced the exploitative
framework of the sector.
Each year, an average of 200 workers has been dying due to
mine accidents and 300-odd people are getting grievously injured,
with several workers getting permanently disabled. And till date, the
compensatory regime has been dismal, with not even 1% of those
killed, disabled or injured getting any adequate compensation. Life is
cheap, going by the offers of paltry sums by mine owners that silence
the voices of poor and destitute dependents of those killed or injured
at work in the mines. In all cases that have been studied, it was
obvious that the mine owners themselves were to be blamed for
making the workers toil in the most primitive conditions of work.
Harsh words no doubt, but this scenario warrants the assertion that in
these mines, maximisation of profit is the only credo; lives and limbs of
the workers are of no value. Therefore, the labour which works these
mines, without regard for safety or dignity of labour, are often pushed
into the maw of death.
Mines here also resort to the illegal practice of employing
children for working in some hazardous operations. The local
administrative setup, the law & order machinery, and the police have
been apathetic to this practice, which has emboldened mine owners
and contractors to continue with this practice, without far of stringent
action against such gross violations by the government. While
deployment of child labour in the mines is common knowledge,
collusion between the government machinery and the
mine-owners/contractors have meant that not a single mine-owner or
contractor has so far been arrested.
The deaths and injuries caused by accidents go the same way,
with a colluding police and the mines & labour department of the state
maintaining silence, brushing the truth behind the accidents beneath
the proverbial carpet.
This is a measure of the all-encompassing greed that pervades
the sector on the one hand, and the government's apathy and
unconcern towards valuable lives on the other. With most of the
casualties resulting out of mine accidents in the state failing to find
even a centimetre's mention in the newspapers, whatever little is
reported is taken to be the sum total of such accidents.
But given the nature of mining operations in the state, where an
overwhelmingly large percentage of mining leases are held by
individual mine-owners and contractors, and the industry is
predominantly in the unorganised sector, where rules, norms and
standards are often flouted rather than honoured, this is in total
contradiction to the true state of affairs. Barring a few exceptions,
most of these mines do not even possess a ‘first aid box’; most mines
are patently unsafe, with imminent danger of accidents looming large
at every mine. But nobody is bothered about these catastrophes in
the offing, as human life is held to be cheap in the light of obscene
profits.
High rates of injury and the exploitative nature of their
employment [daily wages are a meagre INR 60/- for 12 hours of toil]
apropos also make the workers dependent on mine owners, who loan
them money for meeting their daily needs that they can scarce afford
on their earnings alone. This leads them into a debt trap, transforming
them into a kind of bonded-labour. Debts typically range from INR
10,000/- to INR 150,000/- for each family of workers. This
indebtedness has the insidious tendency to rob them of their basic
freedom -- they are bound to the debtor and not allowed to move or
work elsewhere until their debt is settled, which is more often than not
perpetual.
Death In The Air They Breathe
ushed into penury by circumstances arising out of landlessness
and/or unproductive marginal land holdings, the rural poor in
the mining belts of Rajasthan, who were mainly adivasis and
dalits, sought to find an alternate livelihood, and took to mining for
sheer survival. The unorganised mining sector in the state found a
ready labour base in them that could be exploited, and has
unscrupulously done so, for many years now.
P
Apart from the questionable practices mentioned in the
foregoing chapters like exploitation of labour for low wages, lack of
any safety measures leading to injuries, disfigurement and death due
to accidents, and perpetration of indebtedness, the mines are a killing
field for yet another reason, which has manifested itself through
occupational diseases that rapidly decimate entire populations of
workers who with stone in the stone mines of the state.
Premature deaths of the labour force are the norm here in this
sector, with diseases like silicosis, asbestosis, bagassosis, and silico-
tuberculosis being rampant in the people who work in the mines,
sapping their life force. Interestingly, most doctors in the state are not
even aware of the occupational problems of these notifiable diseases.
This sort of apathy at all levels has led to rising levels of these
occupational diseases, that have a tendency to rapidly shorten life-
spans of the afflicted, and underline the increasingly hazardous nature
of the working conditions in Rajasthan's mines and stone quarries.
Radha Sharma, Chief Functionary of “Aparjita Sansthan”, who
has been working among mining communities, and has formed 4 Self
Help Groups (SHGs) among the women mine workers in Balesar,
Jodhpur, has this to say: “A large majority of workers here suffer from
silicosis, silico-tuberculosis and tuberculosis, and die a premature
death due these diseases. In villages of Jodhpur where there are
concentrations of sandstone quarries, young widows constitute a large
percentage of the population. Though the state government did in the
past enact legislation to protect and compensate sandstone mine
workers’ way back in 1955 (The Rajasthan Silicosis Rules, 1955), the
rules are observed more in the breach, with mine owners flouting the
law with impunity...”
Workers engaged in tunnelling, mining, quarrying or chiselling
are without exception exposed to fine silica dust, which pervades
everything. Exposure to high concentrations of silica over a longish
period of time results in Silicosis, one of the oldest known occupational
diseases to affect sand-blasters, rock cutters and stone miners.
Prolonged exposure to free crystalline silica dust (silicon dioxide)
results in chronic fibrosis of the lungs.
When crystalline silica dust is inhaled into the human respiratory
system, lung tissue reacts by developing fibrotic nodules. This
condition is called silicosis. If the nodules become too large, it results
in respiratory distress, and left untreated results in death. Usually
diagnosed by X-ray, silicosis is a disabling and irreversible disease.
Inhalation of crystalline silica particles can also lead to TB and
bronchitis.
Spread of the disease among worker populations is preventable
through the use of technology that avoids formation of silica-bearing
dust deployed in tandem with certain mechanisms to avoid the
inhalation of the dust.
The deleterious effects of silica have been known since the time
of Hippocrates, as early as 460 AD and even earlier to Egyptians. It
was Agricole who emphasised the seriousness of Silicosis as a killer
disease in 1556 AD. Since then it has been on the radar of medical
science, and a large body of literature exists which deals with
problems associated with Silicosis.
An extraordinarily high incidence of silicosis has been reported
amongst workers of sandstone quarries in northern Nigeria (Worrell et
al., 1975) where 30% of the patients sampled exhibited X-Ray
evidence of silicosis. Silica particles, 0.5 to 5 microns in diameter are
likely to accelerate the disease, as most of the coarser particles (of the
size 5 to 10 microns or above) are removed in the upper respiratory
tract itself.
US Public Health Service statements have described
concentrations of dust particles in the atmosphere as primary and
secondary thresholds. The primary threshold consists of 5x106
particles per cubic feet which are less than 10 microns in size.
Exposure to concentration below this level does not cause silicosis. The
secondary threshold consists of 100x106 particles of the same size per
cubic feet. Those exposed at or above this level will develop silicosis.
The small particles that are deposited in the alveoli of the lungs
are eaten away by cells called macrophages where they are acted
upon by lysosomal enzymes that liberate the dust and allow it to enter
the cell cytoplasm resulting in the death of the cell. Silica particles are
acted upon by protein and act as antigen and antibodies are produced
and unleashed.
The reaction of antigen and antibodies cause complex tissue
reactions resulting in the death of cells. This is why silicosis progresses
even after a person had stopped working in sandstone quarries.
Exposure to silica dust of approximately 40 to 48 hours a week and as
long as 8-10 months in a year makes mine workers vulnerable to the
complications produced by silica.
Mines sans Basic Requirements
ines and stone quarries of Rajasthan lack even very basic
rudimentary requirements and bare minimum arrangements
for monitoring the health of mine workers. Furthermore,
these mines are often devoid of basic human amenities as well. In the
vicinity of labour habitations clustered near the mine fields, one finds
substandard and semi-rotten vegetables, coarse flour (often
adulterated) and other victuals being sold at above ordinary prices to
the workers. Worker habitations are often haphazard shanty-towns,
tiny cubicles covered with tin-sheets on stone pillars, most of them just
about two-and-a half feet high (one has to crawl into it to gain access).
These are the only shelters available to the mining workforce come
sweltering summer or freezing cold.
M
Conventional mining safety gear like boots and helmets are
unheard of and people in these mines work barefoot, with bare hands.
In most open cast mines, workers are made to toil even in
temperatures as high as 45 to 47 degrees Celsius. Instead of using
shafts, these mines deploy cranes to lower workers 300 metres or
more below the ground level. Every time a mine is blasted, workers
have to huddle together in the open, taking shelter behind rocks.
Injuries are common, due to the unscientific and crude methods
adopted by the mine owners and contractors, as noted earlier.
Women Mine Workers
istorically, mining has been an enterprise characterised by
very patriarchal modes of operation. It has also been an
industry and sector that is most hostile towards women. The
globally prevalent myth that the very presence of women in mine pits
leads to collapse of the mines and death of the miners itself resonates
with the hostility towards women inherent in the psyche of the mining
sector in general.
H
The mining industry in Rajasthan rarely employ women in any of
the formal/organised, public or private sector mines, as mining is
considered a highly male dominated activity, and they are prohibited
from entering the mines. Women are considered unfit for the hard
labour of working in the mines and only men are considered eligible
for employment. Most of the jobs taken up by women in this sector
relate to either minor administrative work or menial lower rung
activities like sweeping and cleaning, or being attendants in the mining
offices.
Literacy levels of women among adivasis and dalits in Rajasthan
are abysmally low, at a bare 3.46 %. Such low literacy levels are also
an indicator of the abject poverty levels of these communities. This in
turn shows their vulnerability to remain in exploitative forms of labour
like mining in the unorganized sector in the state. It is also reflective
of the lack of opportunity and the inaccessibility of any kind of skilled
labour for them, in the absence of any worthwhile educational
opportunities.
The age-wise distribution of women mine-workers in the state is
an interesting indicator of the extent of women's exploitation in
mining. In the age group of 5-14, women form 40% of the workforce,
in the 15-19 years age-group, they form 27% and thereafter, there is a
corresponding decrease in their representation as the age of women
increases. While this is not to say that exploitation of male children is
desirable, the fact that girl-child labour is employed on a large scale in
mining is a ground for serious concern.
In the small private or unorganised mining sector, where
majority of women workers are employed, there are no work-safety
measures worth mentioning, and the women are susceptible to serious
health hazards which also affect their reproductive health, and more
often than not, they are also exposed to sexual exploitation. Women
of migrant communities who live near and around the mine fields of
illegal and unorganised sector mines often lead a precarious life
scavenging in the region. They live in fear, facing constant
harassment from mine owners & contractors, the police and small-time
politicians, for eking out this meagre form of livelihood. Besides, as
scavengers, they work in totally unprotected work milieus.
It is this inexorable shift from traditional economies, where
women had a relatively better control over their bodies and natural
resources in their traditional form of livelihood, whether agriculture or
collection of forest produce; to a life in mining, where they are pitted
against prohibitory labour practices, vagaries of the markets, and lack
of any viable alternatives, that brings about a drastic change in their
livelihoods and social life.
Women workers are employed as head-load carrying porters,
and in stone breaking, cleaning, and other forms of daily-wage labour
where they are entirely at the mercy of contractors, and have
absolutely no work-safety or security. If there are accidents like mine
collapse, where the women are killed or disabled, these are most often
hushed up by the families themselves, for fear of police action or
facing the company's wrath.
Women are required to work long hours even in advanced stages
of pregnancy, have no leave entitlement or crèche facilities, and are
always under threat of being thrown out. In the stone crushers, most
women have contacted and suffer from tuberculosis (and so are their
infants who are brought to the work place and left around to fend for
themselves in the quarrying sites while their mothers are working).
Even this work is but seasonal for them.
Wages of women workers are almost always less than those for
men. Women do not get even a weekly off, leave alone a paid holiday.
Even pregnancy or childbirth is not considered. No work equipment is
provided to them, and there are no toilets or rest shelters or facilities.
The women are exposed to the exploitation, physical and sexual, of
the mine-owners, contractors and other men, having to walk back
several kilometres to return to their villages and are vulnerable to
assault on the way.
Women workers in the mines, like all other workers are also
susceptible to and suffer from several occupational illnesses right from
respiratory problems, silicosis, tuberculosis, leukaemia, and arthritis.
Specific to them, they also are prone to maladies that lead to
reproductive health problems.
Women workers in the mines have to either leave their children
behind at their homes unattended, or if at all they do manage to take
the children with them to the workplace, they have to expose them to
high levels of dust and noise pollution, not to mention the danger they
are susceptible to accidents, due to blasting or of falling into mine pits
while playing, etc.
Mine owners do not provide any facilities for the children of their
work force like crèches or attendants to look after them except at
times of inspection when officials from the labour department visit
them. Such inspections also tend to be a mere eyewash as the
officials are often bought over through bribes and rarely if at all report
on the poor working conditions in these mines, and neither do they
take any punitive action.
Most of the adivasi and dalit women working in the mines are
seasonal workers, their prime occupation being that of agricultural
labourers. This is because most of the land available to them has been
lost to mining and in this current time and age when the terms of
trade is going against farm labour, it is difficult for them to eke out a
sustainable livelihood from agriculture or from the forests. Neither is
the work in the mines regular for the women, nor therefore, keeps
them shifting between occupations. This gives the mine owners ample
opportunity not to provide minimum wages or employ them as
permanent labour in the mines, as they can be blamed for irregularity
of attendance.
Almost a good quarter of the women work force comes from
widows of mine workers who have died of silicosis, tuberculosis and
other respiratory diseases.
Some of the reasons cited by these women for their working in
mines are said to be poverty, death of the earning member,
debilitating illness of the earning member, desertion by the earning
member, and non-availability of other sources of employment. For
these reasons they get caught in a vicious circle, doomed to a
shattered life coming to terms with widowhood, sexual exploitation
and rape, molestation, destitution, exhaustion and silence.
Besides economic exploitation, their physical and sexual
exploitation by the contractors/mine owners goes unvoiced and
unsaid, for fear of their being thrown out of job that fetches them their
daily bread. And even if they do dare to disclose these incidents and
report to the law and order machinery, they often do not get justice
due to collusion between the local police, and the powerful lobby of
the mine owners/contractors.
Women in the mines are engaged in work like removing debris,
breaking pebbles and loading them into tractors. They also assist men
workers at the work site by taking their tools to the blacksmith for
mending, supplying drinking water and tea, and also for loading stone
chips onto tractors-trailers. On an average 2 to 3 women work in each
mine. And almost all of these women have contacted and are suffering
from occupational diseases related to stone mining, leading to an
increase in weakness, anaemia, abortions, stillbirth and death.
Unfortunately their work and toil is neither recognized by the state nor
by their own families.
Child Labour
he presence of the child labourer in these mines is an even
worse travesty of justice, and a very serious social hazard.
Children form a segment of cheap labour for the unorganized
mining sector In Rajasthan. In activities like quarrying, stone crushing
units, marble and masonry stone mining, transporting, head-loading,
stone breaking, and in some processing industries involved in the
manufacture of marble products, slate industry, etc., children are
taken up as labour to work in certain hazardous areas of operation.
T
More often than not, these children tend to get into the mine
labour workforce market to supplement the low incomes of their
families, or to pay up the debts of the families, or even as bonded
labourers. As they are not shown as official workers in the mines
employing them, the wages they receive are also entirely dependent
on the scrupulousness or unscrupulousness of their supervisors and
contractors who have been 'kind' enough to hire them.
While under 'training', these children receive no wages, and the
period and tenure of their training is also left to the vagaries of the
supervisor, the contractor and the mine owner. In reality, studies have
shown that child labourers work faster and contribute to better outputs
and productivity than many of their adult counterparts, but these
children are either paid no wages, or at best are paid inhumanly low
wages. They are often physically, mentally and sometimes even
sexually abused, and in the mine fields, where labour laws are lax, the
government too turns a blind eye to their plight.
The Insidious Debt Trap
he Rajasthan Mineral Policy, which was formulated and
implemented in 1994 and then subsequently amended and
reworked in 2005, is now beginning to have its impact at the
level of the mine and the mine workers. It has already contributed to
the augmentation of the oppressive work conditions of a large number
of people who are dependent on seasonal or permanent employment
as wage labour in mining to maintain only bare subsistence levels. This
perpetration of a scenario from which the worker has no escape
continues to persist, while the mining sector continues to thrive and
make profits as high as a 300 % return on investment. How is this
done? How is the mining sector managing to keep the cost of labour
at abysmal levels while it earns a surplus value of more than 300
percent?
T
Quarry workers and mine labour is encouraged to get into a high
level of indebtedness by mine owners and contractors, as a strategy
for ensuring cheap labour. This is done through the practice of making
advances available. The worker taking such an advance from the
contractors and/or the leaseholder is held beholden to them. Since no
written records are maintained at the time of the transaction, the
debtor is often forced to work at lower wages. The loan advanced
once never seems to get repaid. It also gets added on to fresh
advances requested by a worker who again borrows for some
conspicuous consumption, or for meting out a major life saving health
expenditure.
It is a fact of the matter that the contractor/mine-owner assesses
the worker like one does a draught animal, weighing his potential to
work in the quarries and his ability to sustain production at a certain
profitable level for a given time, even when calculating the amount of
the initial loan to be advanced to the labourer in question.
Consequently, younger workers are advanced larger amounts of
money, as the mine owner is assured that he will work for his entire
life-span (which albeit gets cut short by silicosis and the like) with him
in order to repay the debt. And workers generally have no intention to
repay the loans as it is fallaciously thought that if the loan is repaid,
they may be asked to leave the job soon after. This seems to have
perpetrated a vicious circle, out of which there is no escape. Pervasive
networking among the mine owners and contractors ensures that if a
worker leaves one job and takes up another at a different mine, the
debt also follows him, as it gets transferred to his new employer.
The operations of these mines are so structured that workers
prefer to work on piece-rates. Usually, for every one worker who
works on piece-rate there are two or more workers employed under
him who work on daily-wage. These daily wage earners demands some
advance from the piece-rate worker before they start working with
him. This advance is then paid by the mine-owner or contractor on the
recommendation of the piece-rate worker, and this amount is added to
the total advance of the piece rate worker, and he is liable for
repayment of the same by his daily-wage workers. Consequently, while
resulting higher production yields higher profit to the mine owner, it
leads to higher indebtedness on the part of the piece-rate worker.
Mine Workers' Habitations
iminishing opportunities for economic activities in the rural
regions of the state is the primary factor behind the motive
for migration of the rural poor into semi-urban and peri-urban
areas. As urban agglomerations swell, and opportunities for urban
labour also pale into insignificance, the migrating poor from rural
regions of the surrounding districts find no option but to move into
mining areas and come into the market for workers in the quarries
that abound in this region.
D
The migrants end up living in rented shanty towns and shacks
close to the quarry sites. These shelters are generally owned by the
leaseholders, to whom the migrants have to pay rent. As this process
goes on and sites get exploited to their maximum potential, worked
out quarry sites have turned into a new form of vicious slums, having
more than three to four hundred habitations, sorely lacking in
amenities.
This increased inflow of people into the mining settlements
stresses out the already over fragile capacity of these habitats to meet
even bare minimum standards in cleanliness, hygiene and sanitation,
not to mention clean potable water and minimum nutrition.
City municipalities spurn these settlements, as they do not come
under their purview, and even where they do, there is practically no
provision for making rudimentary accessible basic social service
delivery mechanisms like health and education facilities.
Moreover, it is clearly evident that even the primary motive of
this movement i.e., livelihood stability, is also only partially met.
Added to this, the new drudgeries that these migrant mine working
communities have to face are those typical of sprawling urban slums.
Crime, delinquency, substance abuse, stress, and heightened
family/domestic violence etc., characterize the daily life in these
settlements.
Increasing consumerism and the negative impact of mass media
has also contributed in no small measure to unrealistic aspirations and
skewed perceptions of personal needs and growth, leading to
increasing lawlessness. In this forlorn milieu, it goes without
gainsaying that it is the women and children who face the brunt of it...
Inside the Mining Belt of Rajasthan
ajasthan’s mineral economy is dependent primarily on minor
minerals. The state government makes regulatory law
regarding the grant of concessions (leases, etc.) for mining
these minor minerals. The mining of significant revenue earning major
minerals like base-metals is kept under public sector control.
RMarble is the highest revenue-earning mineral of Rajasthan
followed by limestone and sandstone. For our present discussion we
shall restrict ourselves to a brief description of the nature of minor
mineral mining in some specific areas of Rajasthan.
Among the areas visited were parts of Rajsamand and Udaipur
districts in South Rajasthan, parts of Jodhpur district in Western
Rajasthan, Makrana in Nagaur district and the area near Sariska
sanctuary in the Alwar district of North Rajasthan.
In the following pages, some relevant details from the areas
mentioned above are provided.
Mining Industry in Rajasthan: Some Glimpses
Over 3600 Marble Mining Leases, Production in 2000-2001 was 4.28 Million Tons
About 1100 Marble Processing Units and 50 Automatic Tiling
Plants with Marble Slab Processing Capacity of 1,000 Million
Square Feet Per Annum & Marble Tiling Capacity of 300 Million
Square Feet Per Annum
About 530 Granite Mining Leases with Production of 50,000
Tons in 1999-2000
Granite Slab Processing Capacity of 15 Million Square Feet Per
Annum & Granite Tiling Capacity of 50 Million Square Feet Per
Annum
Immense Deposits of Sandstone Accounting for Production of
8.37 Million Tons in 1999- 2000 from over 1700 Mining Leases
Enormous Flaky Limestone (Kota Stone) Deposits with
Estimated Production of 1.62 Million Tons in 1999-2000
Vast Potential Slate Deposits Accounting for Production of
12,000 Tons in 1999-2000
Mining Industry in Rajasthan Generates Employment for some
3.1 Million People
Mining Marble In South Rajasthan
istricts of South Rajasthan like Udaipur, Rajsamand,
Dungarpur and Banswara are mined extensively for marble,
serpentine, masonry stone, soapstone and limestone, among
the minor minerals prevalent in the region. Private-owned mining of
these minerals occurs primarily under small leasehold areas, though it
is quite possible for a single owner to hold several contiguous leases.
DAlongside the mining belt, a large sprawl of numerous limestone
kilns, and a whole multitude of small stone processing units can be
found, where the mined stones are cut, polished and stacked for
further transport and for selling. At places like Kelwa in Rajsamand
district, the marble mining belt continues on and on for several
kilometres, where every inch of land is being mined. Where the
deposits are available on the outcrops of Aravalis, these look hacked,
sliced-up and stripped bare, and in places literally razed to the ground
depending upon the age and intensity of mining. The thread-tiny roads
here experience a heavy traffic load of trucks, carts, jeeps, tractors
and trailers, etc., carrying away blocks and chunks of marble. In
between the stretches of mining, there are some village settlements.
During the month of October, the land here looked parched and
caked with a crust of white marble dust. We found that the land for
miles around was being used as a convenient dumping-ground for the
waste products of the marble mining and processing endeavour, with
debris generated daily from the mines and the processing units spilled
hither and thither.
Near the soapstone mines of Kemti and Kalora in the Udaipur
district, the air one found was laden with fine stone dust clogging one's
nostrils. Two mining leases here are privately owned, each spreading
over a distance of four to seven kilometres, a couple of hundred
metres deep at places, filled with water from the last rains. These
mines are semi mechanized. While most of the larger mines have
some machines, the bulk of the work in these mines is still done by
manual labour.
Profitability of stone mining in the region is ensured to a large
extent by remaining in the unorganised sector, which facilitates the
violation of existing laws as an accepted practice rather than as an
exception. Thus mining or quarry leases will have innumerable
irregularities in several areas, in ownership, in the haphazard manner
of working the mines geared towards maximum daily output, rampant
dumping of wastes, encroachment on land other than what is specified
by the lease, hazardous work conditions and extremely low and erratic
wages, not following safety guidelines, non payment of cess/royalty,
not keeping legal records of the number of workers employed, etc.
The burgeoning domestic demand for building as well as
decorative stones, coupled with the large number of small mine
owners always competing to cut overheads and extract maximum
profit till the boom lasts, has created a nightmare-like situation in
Rajasthan. The almost non-existent forest cover, dwindling
productivity of land in an already arid area and large-scale and rapid
degradation of land due to mining and other related unsustainable
activities have left very few available livelihood options for the local
population.
Mining as an activity not only encroaches into the natural
resource base of the local communities but also introduces avoidable
external elements in the system. This has artificially induced in many
places a growth of urbanization, influx of outsiders and the
introduction of a cash economy with a resulting hike in the prices of
daily commodities. Stagflation (inflation in a stagnant economy) is
more the norm here. The growing need for wage earning leads to
increased out-migration. High dependence on activities such as mining
has cut enormously into the bargaining power of people creating some
of the ugliest exploitative situations.
In some of the mines in Kelwa, the majority of the workers are
tribals from the neighbouring tehsils. Living on open mine sites in
makeshift shelters constructed out of mine debris, many of them are in
debt, and extremely ill paid. Water and fuel wood are scarce. Daily
necessities have to be procured at high prices. Some live on the mine
site all year round, going back to their villages every new moon day.
The frequency decreases with the distance from the mines, while
people from nearby areas often go back to sow the kharif crop.
What is clear is that there is no dearth of people of work in the
mines. This generally creates a situation that is favourable from the
point of view of the mine owner. The system of giving loans and the
subsequent indebtedness of labour also ensures that a particular
group of people continue to supply their labour to the mine at low cost.
The irony of the situation is that the Rajasthan State Government
justifies the expansion of mining by touting its employment generation
potential when there is no legal documentary evidence defining the
status of the several thousand people working in the mines.
Makrana's Pits of Death
akrana, a small town in Rajasthan, is best known for the
pristine white marble that went into the construction of that
great monument of love, the Taj Mahal in Agra, and the
Victoria Memorial in Kolkata. Makrana once became the marble capital
of the world propelled by the fame of the Taj Mahal. But now, it has
become a veritable death trap for marble mine workers, as greedy
marble traders mine out the town and its environs intensively and
haphazardly, pushing environmental and ecological concerns out of
consideration.
M
Marble has become Makrana's death sentence. Given that it
produces the best marble available in Rajasthan, rampant illegal
mining has polluted its soil, air and water. According to a survey done
by the Geological Survey of India, increase in the spread of mining
area, mushrooming waste dumps and built up land during 1967-1998
is at the expense of agricultural land, open lands, ponds and pasture
lands. It has set in a vicious cycle of death: people uprooted by the
growing infertility of the soil have to go to work in the mines for
survival, and the mines exploit them by flouting almost all mining
regulations.
As far as the occupational health hazards are concerned,
incidences of bronchitis, asthma, cough, chest pain and joint pain are
widely reported and prevalent among the population at epidemic
proportions. Noise pollution due to drilling and other mining
operations have caused deafness in numerous cases. Hospital
authorities point out that most of the cases here are of mine accidents,
with accident ratios being 30 to 40 minor, and four to five major cases
every month, and at least two to three mortalities every year. There
are no safety measures for workers, even a simple helmet and mask to
reduce intake of foreign bodies into the respiratory tract are ignored
by those who run the mines.
The Mines Act is often completely ignored here, which is evident
from the high incidence of accidents and deaths. There is no safe and
secure way to get into the 300 to 350 feet deep pits of the mines
except using ladder and rope. Labourers slide over the rope-carrying
compressor on one shoulder and hold on to the rope by the other
hand. Quite often the loose bonded rocks above the mines slide down
and the debris (solid and small pieces of rocks) fall or collapse causing
injury and/or sometimes death of the mine workers.
No trained and licensed workers are employed for blasting;
instead labourer themselves fix the explosives in the drilled pit. Mine
workers thus have to come out of 300 plus feet deep mine pits within
five minutes. Missing even seconds in this process can cost them their
life. During the rainy season, mine collapses tend to increase. The
ropes become slippery as fine marble dust stick to them, causing
accidents. 50-60 deaths occur every year here. Mine owners usually
settle compensation through middlemen by giving few thousands
rupees to surviving family members and get done with it.
52 mines collapsed in 2005-06. The main reason cited was that
marble is often mined along an incline but the pits tend to become
wider towards the bottom. Lease-holders of mines are required to keep
`safety pillars' between the various pits so that the top does not
collapse. Unfortunately, this requirement is often not complied with.
What makes matters worse is the fact that none of the workers
wear even a helmet, even though dynamite is used to blast through
rocks. They do not want to wear helmets because of the heat; but it is
the responsibility of the employer to ensure that workers take
adequate precautions, whether they wish to do so or not. Also, no
warnings are issued at the time of blasting so that workers may be
moved away from the site of the explosion.
Rajasthan State Mine Workers Union, a federation of small
unions across the State, filed a PIL (public interest litigation) about the
violation of norms in the quarries. As a result of this intervention, 35
mining licenses were subsequently cancelled. Each mine owner now
has to put up a notice board detailing the name of the leaseholder,
and the exact size and location of the mine. At least, workers can now
know whom they work for. Safety-kits are also mandatory, and are
provided to workers. Metal ladders are used in place of ropes to
descend into the pits.
According to the Mines Act of 1952, workers are entitled to the
provision of drinking water and first aid at the site, free health check-
ups, registers of employment, resting sheds, a weekly holiday and so
on. But none of these norms are followed. Unfortunately, most
workers are illiterate, debt-ridden and tend not to mobilise easily. The
union has just a little more than 2,000 members, though there are at
least 30,000 workers here. In Makrana, the Marble Mazdoor Union was
formed but recently.
Rule 9 of the Rajasthan Silicosis Rules (1955) requires employers
to get workers medically examined before hiring them, followed by a
check-up every five years, to check for the onset of silicosis.
Rule 10 requires that a post-mortem be performed on a worker
who dies of silicosis, so that the family of the deceased may claim
compensation. None of these rules are followed either, and as a
result, the incidence of silicosis is found to be as high as 40-50 per
cent among sandstone workers.
The authorities' unwillingness to acknowledge the problem is the
worst hurdle. Although a State-level Pneumoconiosis Board was
constituted in 1976 to check the incidence and severity of silicosis
cases, and to facilitate compensation claims of victims, the three-
member board never functioned. No medical examinations were
conducted and the issue of compensation was conveniently forgotten.
One thing that everyone is agreed upon is that the State's
Mining Policy definitely needs to be revisited and revised, to ensure
safety and justice for the millions of mine workers eking out a
livelihood in the largely unorganised sector.
The first step would be to insist on employment records. Most
workers spend their entire lifetime working as casual labourers.
Employment registers are mostly incomplete, if maintained at all.
Some workers get wage-cards for attendance, but are not allowed to
keep copies of it since this would be against the employers' interests;
if the number of workers officially crosses 25, the employer would
have to provide for gratuity, maternity leave, provident fund and so
on. Living conditions of the workers are also sub-standard. Since most
of them are immigrant workers, they live in tiny shacks without their
families; 15-20 men share a single room. Women rarely have the
shelter of a roof.
Women also fare worse in the matter of wages; they are paid
only INR 50/- a day, which is below the minimum wages in the State.
They are told that they do not work `as hard as the men'. Women
constitute 37 per cent of the workforce in the mines, and children 15
per cent.
The State Labour Department has to be made more responsible
if the workers are to receive justice. As of now, it does not resolve
disputes involving amounts greater than INR 1,800/-. For claims above
INR 1,800/-, the labourer has to go to court.
The State's apathy to the well-being and safety of the workers in
a sector that brings in Crores of Rupees as revenue is quite worrying.
All attention is directed towards raising production, while the welfare
of workers is conveniently ignored. In fact, a telling statement of the
State government's lack of concern in this matter is its Mineral Policy
2005, where the welfare of workers finds mention only in one short
paragraph towards the end.
The document mentions health camps for workers, but serious
issues such as accident compensation and occupational disease are
not even mentioned in the passing in this policy document.
In places like Makrana where marble mining has traditionally
been the mainstay of the local economy, the situation is slightly
different. In Makrana almost every household is involved in some trade
related to either marble mining or processing of marble blocks, slabs
and tiles, or sculpting and making of ornamental marble artefacts, etc.
The settlers who came to work in the mines have created a large part
of Makrana town. The wage rates are slightly better than that in south
Rajasthan. But the area is affected by some complex problems. Large-
scale mining for many years, manual but extensive, has devastated
the landscape. The older mines have become deep and are filled with
water after the rains. Highly mechanized forms of mining are required
to be able to extract the marble and retaining profitability. This has
affected older mines and the people working there with only manually
operated cranes as mechanical support.
Large dealers in marble processing have moved into Makrana
over time. These people control the marble prices both of the raw slab
(from the quarry) and the finished product. The rate at which a marble
slab is bought from the mines is much lower than the processed
product. Large-scale processing is done at the larger units. Household
units processing and manufacturing marble products are slowly going
out of business. The new marble mines coming up near Makrana are
all large leaseholds with a high degree of mechanization. A lot of
erstwhile agricultural land is also being mined.
Makrana town is a hub of commercial activity but lacks even the
basic infrastructure needed by such a town. It has no roads, no proper
sewage system and most critically no water. The sludge and slurry
from the processing units are deposited in every available inch of
place. The very air is laden with marble dust, reducing visibility in the
night. Huge sheds, godowns and processing units cover large areas,
while deep mines that look like ravines occupy the remaining land. In-
between are the small, congested settlements where even water for
daily consumption has to be bought at a price.
In the midst of all this there are the large enclosed areas of rich
private landowners. These are people with high political connections
and they control a lot of the marble trading in this area. One of the
settlements is Kalanada, where 3,000 people have been living for the
last fifty odd years. These people had come to work in the marble
mines years ago and had settled down in the area. Kalanada has of
late received an eviction notice. The grapevine has it that this has
come about because the local MLA here wishes to extend his property.
Makrana is literally disintegrating but mining continues to expand like
a demoniac machine gone insane.
On January 7 2007, two marble mines (no. 44 and 45) in the
Chak Dungri range in Makrana collapsed, taking down with them a
closed railway line and a section of a marble-cutting unit, which is
more than 45 metre away. In a miracle of sort, however, nothing
happened to the labourers working there. The collapse was due to a
blast.
There is, however, no guarantee that something like that won’t
happen again, which may prove fatal to those working there, for the
authorities do not seem to have taken any lesson. Illegal mining in the
area beyond the allotted boundary is rampant with scant regard to
safety norms, turning the mines into death traps where a tragedy is
just waiting to happen.
There are 55 mines on a seven-kilometre stretch, parallel to
the Makrana-Parbatsar railway line, which was closed down a decade
ago. Over the years, several mine owners have gone beyond their de-
marcated limit right under the railway tracks and even beyond them,
with the authorities feigning ignorance and in some cases helpless-
ness.
Laxmichand Punia, Senior Engineer, North West Railways, has
filed a complaint against the owners of the mines that collapsed on
January 7th but has little hope that an action would be taken. The North
West Railways has filed several complaints with the Mines Department
and the state government, but all in vain. They have not been able to
limit the lease owners who have started underground mining, following
which there is a fear that the land will give way anytime.
In 1999, the Rajasthan High Court ordered the mine owners
to deposit INR 4 Crore for relocating the railway line but they have
failed to do even that. Manoj Rajaram, one of the mines which col-
lapsed, said that they are not doing any illegal mining and neither
there was any blast.
The MLPC has filed a writ petition related to the condition of
mining in Makrana with the Supreme Court. However, the pathetic con-
dition of marble mine workers and the most primitive condition of
mines have caused innumerable problems, including environmental
destruction, safety issues and health hazards for the mine workers and
general population living around the mines. Most mines continue work-
ing despite closure notice.
Though mining beyond the permissible limit does not fall into
Government’s preview but it had issued notices to more than 450
mines under Section 22/3 and clearly stated they are dangerous, many
of these are on the seven-kilometre stretch. State’s safety mines de-
partment based in Ajmer had informed the state government that
mines need to be shut down. The Safety Mines Department cannot do
that as it’s a small department and do not have the physical strength
to enforce these notices.
Tiger Sanctuary Or Mining Complex?
ariska is a tiger sanctuary situated in Alwar, one of the northern
districts of Rajasthan. The low hills of Sariska till recently were
covered with densely forested slopes, and the land between the
hills covered by deciduous forestlands, which were home to the tiger
and other wildlife, and an entire ecosystem fuelled by the animal food-
chain.
SThe ground water table in the villages around Sariska is quite
high and the agricultural land here is very fertile and productive. Until
recently, Sariska was an idyllic sanctuary ensconced among the hills,
surrounded by villages and hamlets that thrived on agriculture along
the peripheries of the tiger sanctuary. As tourism expanded, so did
opportunities, and near Ajabgarh village, a large heritage resort is
coming up, on the banks of a barrage built by the Maharaja of Jaipur
during the last century.
Sariska's proximity to the Delhi-Jaipur-Agra golden quadrilateral,
apart from fuelling the growth of niche tourism, has also made the
area quite lucrative for siting other projects as well. As many as
thirteen distilleries are expected to come up in the region, and step up
operations in the Alwar district.
Large-scale mining in the sanctuary buffer zones, however is the
bane of the region, causing irreparable havoc in the area. The
Supreme Court, in the early 90s, gave an indictment in response to a
writ petition filed by a local NGO, ordering closure of mines working
inside the reserve's buffer area.
Among the mines closed as per the Supreme Court Judgment
was HCL’s Copper mine in village Kho-Dariba, Alwar district. Water
containing toxic copper compounds continues to seep out of the mines
into the village to this date. Also there is an almost three story high
waste dump outside the processing unit right next to the mine. Every
monsoon, rainwater cuts deep furrows in the dump washing toxic
heavy metals into the surface water sources of the villages below.
While the public sector mine still remains closed as per the apex
court’s ruling. But within a year almost all other mines in the
unorganised sector mining marble in the belt having substantial
deposits have started functioning again. In villages like Tilwad and
Tilwadi, marble mining operations are taking place right in the middle
of the village on purchased private agricultural land. Many of the large
landholders in the villages are today keen on selling their agricultural
land as they are getting high prices for it.
In most of the better-off families in the region, the occupational
pattern is changing, with the children getting educated and moving
away from agriculture based activities, and urban transition becoming
more possible and desirable. With these people selling of their
considerable landholdings, the land use in the area is also changing
rapidly. For instance, in Tilwadi village, pieces of marble blasted from
the mines fall into the nearby agricultural land. Rainwater released
from the mine sites was also flooding the neighbouring lands. In such
situations the agricultural productivity of land is going down due the
impact of mining. Sooner or later most people would sell. The opinions
commonly held in the area also seem pro-mining and many are in
favour of monetisation of transaction.
In all the big mines coming up the local people seem to be
playing the roles of contractors and middleman, sometimes employed
by the mines as cashiers and administrators, etc.
Most of the labour here comprises members of migrant
communities from the nearby districts of Sawai Madhopur and Rural
Jaipur. Mining is expanding rapidly in an area, which has some of the
most fertile lands, with plentiful water supply. The dominant opinion
rife in the area seems to favour all outside intrusions that could lead to
a monetary windfall for the local populace. In the meantime the
Sariska forest area is seen to be dwindling and shrinking. The
forthcoming plans of a national highway through this area would speed
up this process of the rape of an idyllic outpost.
In one of the villages within the Sariska buffer zone, the women
leave the village at four in the morning and come back at around 9 am
after collecting fodder for the cattle. According to them every year it is
getting slightly more difficult to meet the requirement, as the forests
have thinned some more and one has to go collecting fodder higher
and higher up in the hills. The end of innocence, or is it a sign of
things to come?
The Sandstone Economy of Jodhpur
andstone quarrying is a major source of livelihood and revenue
in the Jodhpur district of Rajasthan. Although it is a minor
mineral, sandstone earns the third largest revenue in the state
of Rajasthan. Sandstone had traditionally been in use for building
purposes in the district and nearby areas. It has a substantial local
market within the state, and an ever growing demand in several other
states primarily given its decorative possibilities. The hills adjoining
the urban agglomeration of Jodhpur city are capped with alternate
beds of coarse and fine-grained sandstone. In these areas sandstone
quarries stretch outwards for miles together on all sides.
S
Quarry licenses are located adjacent to each other along a
continuous bed of sandstone. In the quarry areas, which sprawl out
over ten kilometres in some places, it is difficult to distinguish
individual lease areas. Individual quarries generally do not have any
names. Each quarry however has a demarcated work force within a
complex system of hierarchy. The family members of the leaseholders
also work in some of these quarries but these cases are few and far
between.
Generally the lease area is divided into portions and given to
individual contractors who further have a number of people working
for them or in some cases do the entire work themselves. The entire
operation is done manually using hand tools like hammer, plinths and
tape measures. After the initial clearing up of the soil and overburden,
the exposed sandstone slabs are measured and manually extricated,
cut and sized.
Hard labour for long hours shortens the work life of most people
working in the sandstone mines. Men do the actual quarrying.
Women do the work of clearing and loading the rubble and debris. The
payment is either on piece-rates or on daily-wage basis. Among the
people who work in the mines, while some come from nearby villages,
the largest number is from neighbouring districts. There is a high rate
of indebtedness among the quarry workers. This is, as cited earlier,
primarily due to the practice of taking advances from the contractors
and/or the leaseholders.
This kind of bondage due to indebtedness is extremely common
in the area. People from nearby districts who come to work in the
quarries live in rented shacks close to the quarry sites, which are
generally owned by the leaseholders to whom they pay rent. Although
the quarry sites are small (not more than 100 x 200 feet), all nearby
areas for kilometres are used as a dumping ground for the large
quantities of debris generated by these quarries.
Mounds of sandstone debris in continuous rows extending up to
10 kilometres are visible from long distances. It is difficult to determine
the pre-mining land use of the area. So the extent of encroachment
into common land, agricultural land, etc. is also difficult to enumerate.
Sandstone mining has an ecologically degrading effect on the
surrounding landscape due to the problem of disposal of large
quantities of debris that it generates as well as the formation of large
and deep pits. In fact the heaps of the overburden of low-grade stones
and rubble in places occupy areas larger than the actual quarry sites.
Interventions For Righting Wrongs
rafting interventions to right the several wrongs that have
made life a living hell for a large cross section of Rajasthan's
people, numbering about 30 million working in the primitive
mines of the state has preoccupied several organizations and activist
groups in the state.
CAt the first instance, this has involved protecting the livelihood of
the people. This entailed intervening into the system to effect changes
that are desirable, or to oppose changes that are considered
undesirable. We can define as ‘desirable changes’ as follows:
Generation of alternative means of livelihood
Regeneration of livelihood sources
Rehabilitation of the displaced
The ‘undesirable changes’ could be activities that lead to the
displacement of a local population. Intervention in this case would be
to oppose the activity causing the undesirable change. The methods,
which have been used to pursue the above objectives, may be
classified as under:
Research and Documentation
Networking, Campaigning and Advocacy
Defining Intervention
Without losing way in the esoteric ramble of infinite possibilities,
an attempt is made to understand in simple terms, what does
intervention entail?
A clear assessment of the issue one is concerned with
An understanding of the intervening agency’s skills, capacity,
specific, advantages, commitment, etc.
The people in question. These are the local inhabitants in
context. The concern is for vulnerable and marginalized group.
The objects of intervention being to progressively reduce and
ultimately aid in eliminating the conditions of marginalisation.
Whether one is working “for them” or “with them” or “inspite of
them”, determines the foundation of intervention.
Organisation Profiles
everal organisations have been working with the dispossessed
lot of mine workers in the state for more than a past decade or
so, and have been mounting interventions in their respective
core areas of operations to alleviate the abject state of affairs within
these mining communities. Interventions have ranged from
mobilization to building social awareness to organising workers
wherever possible to form pressure groups demanding a better work
environment for the communities that are dependent on the activity of
mining in the state. A brief profile of some of them, and their activities
are presented here. The profiles are followed by some general
observations on the status of the mine workers in these regions as
addenda...
S
Samajik Sudhar Evam Manavadhikar Suraksha Samiti:
The organisation was registered in 1994. Between August 1995
and March 1996, the organisation undertook a project to collect
baseline information about mine workers in seven blocks of Udaipur
and Rajsamand districts. August 1996 onwards, they have been
working towards unionising mine workers, and undertake advocacy
through media.
Jyoti Jan Vikas Sansthan:
In 1993-94 the organisation undertook an environmental
regeneration programme in the Udaipur district. The next project in
the two-year period between 1995 and 1997 it organised mine workers
in Udaipur and Rajsamand districts.
Sarita:
In 1993 the organisation organised environmental awareness
camps in forty villages of Udaipur and Dungarpur districts. The special
focus of the camps was to address the various issues related to mine
workers. In 1995 Sarita initiated a project aimed at the regeneration of
a mineral cooperative society at Kaya and Balwara villages.
GVVS (Grameen Vikas Vigyan Samiti):
In 1992, GVVS conducted a baseline survey among the
sandstone mine workers of Jodhpur, conducted several state level
workshops, which led to the formation of a networking and advocacy
agency for the mine workers called the MLPC. Organised a
documentary film production on the condition of mines and mine
workers. Undertook medical examination of a sample of 450 mine
workers to detect the incidence of silicosis and tuberculosis. A PIL was
filed in the state high court resulting in the establishment of a state
silicosis medical board.
GVVS also organised a leadership-training program for the mine
workers, which led to the formation of Jodhpur Zilla Khan Mazdor
Sangathan.
MLPC:
Formed as a regional level advocacy and networking body, the
MLPC has been able to attain some major judicial breakthroughs. The
organisation's efforts have been invaluable towards making some of
the mining legislations available under the statute to become
functional in the district. Represented by eminent lawyers and
development professionals, its base is constituted primarily of the
middle class, and successful campaigning at the legislative and media
level has not yet called for the active involvement of miners. The vast
and spread out nature of the mining activities in their core area of
operations make it necessary that inroads are made into the settled
communities of miners to start with. Their involvement is imperative
for the implementation of progressive decisions.
It is the premise of the organization that people who work the
mines can form a mine workers union. In the present case, the concept
of the union emerged out of the organization first, and then contacts
were made with people mobilising them to join the union. Identification
with the Zilla Pathar Khan Mazdoor Sangathan is yet to be completed.
But the movement is gaining ground as a dispute settler because of
the involvement of the lawyers, but the base that is thus being built
still needs to take root among the miners. With only one full-time field
level worker covering the 5000 odd quarries in and around Jodhpur,
this will definitely take time.
Concerted campaigning by the organisation was instrumental in
getting the Supreme Court order which led to the formation of the
State Silicosis Board. But the constitution of the medical board does
not ensure that it will become functional. For the moment the board
exists only on paper.
Judicial injunctions are not yet enough to mobilise political will
which is largely absent in the state due to the entrenched vested
interests of dominant players. The state will be willing to pay any
amount of lip service as long as it does not have to disturb the
powerful mining lobby. Indeed many of the political brotherhood have
personal stakes in these mines. The maximum utility out of the
professional service offered by the lawyers can be derived only with
supportive field level presence, which is missing at the moment. The
combination of MLPC and a strong union could become a formidable
strength.
The vortex of MLPC still remains in Jodhpur, the place where it
was initiated and founded. South Rajasthan's mining areas being
equally large or even larger, with its own set of complexities, requires
a different strategy and substantial efforts, independent of what is
happening in West Rajasthan. The undivided Udaipur district covers a
total area of 17,279 square kilometres, which is larger than the entire
state of Orissa, for instance. The Jodhpur district, covering an area of
22,850 square kilometres, is even larger. To organize mine workers all
over the district is too broad a mandate for the localised interventions
and would demand superhuman skills. At present mining in Rajasthan
is characterised by violations of all kinds. The entire industry is thriving
on irregularities. It is unlikely that this form of mining activities would
change into any other form of production, as their profitability and
survival is built upon unorganised, labour intensive mining.
Whatever the policy changes, mining in Rajasthan is likely to be
dominated by this form for more time. This is primarily because new
entrants are interested in high value minerals like base metals, lignite,
gold, gemstones as well as explorations for oil and gas.
The thriving unorganised industry involved in building
construction materials and decorative stones is unlikely to be
disturbed. Till now MNCs have not entered the mining sector in the
state, and foreign investment in mining will take some more time to
materialise.
Rajasthan’s Mineral Policy implemented in 1994 was geared to
make things easier for the private sector. The various exploration
projects are presently at an MOU stage. The ultimate materialisation of
many of these would be dependent on several factors. Once they are
formalised they would have a critical impact on settled habitats due to
their sheer size and nature of production. To intervene effectively in
these areas in the future, one would need to have strong base in
combination with coherent strategies in place much in advance.
The case of Sariska
The North Rajasthan experience has been quite interesting. The
concerned organisation has been working in the Sariska reserve area,
in the north-western part of Alwar district. This area is
characteristically different from the rest of Rajasthan. It has better
rainfall and till recently the Sariska hills were covered with dense
forests. A number of rivers originating in the hills resulted in the
creation of fertile lowlands with high agricultural productivity. Things,
of course, have started to change now.
In village Gubbara Vyas, about six to eight kilometres from
Ajabgarh, the women in the household wake up very early. They move
out around 4 am in the morning only to return five hours later, with
large head-loads of fodder and small timber. Every year they get up
slightly earlier, come back slightly later.
This is because they have to go further and further into the hills
to meet the daily fodder requirement of their household cattle. The
forests are slowly disappearing. The land owning classes in the area
are upwardly mobile. They are intent on selling off their agricultural
land at high prices. Some have built big houses for themselves,
bought cars, many are moving to urban areas.
The proximity to Delhi, the locational advantage of the Delhi-
Jaipur highway has made the area extremely lucrative for investors.
Distilleries, mines and hotels are the major bidders. Land prices have
soared in the area. In the Sariska region in particular, a rash of mines
scar the land. Most of the marble mines were situated in the buffer
zone of the sanctuary area, until an effective PIL filed by TBS resulted
in a Supreme Court order declaring the closure of some 200 mines in
the area. Less than three years after, the bigger mines have managed
to open up again and start operations despite the order. Between
Baldeogarh and Tilwadi, along the edges of Sariska, piles of rubble,
boulder and disused machinery mark scores of closed mines. Crane
heads are visible for miles around. Those operations had come to a
standstill.
In many other areas inside the sanctuary mining continues
unabated. Marble mining is on in full swing along a single stretch
surrounding Tilwad, Tilwadi and few other villages all the way up to the
foothills. The place is scarred with rubble heaps and dusty with
decrepit machinery. The hillside, literally on the body of the sanctuary,
was stripped bare of all vegetation, ugly red in places and stark white
wherever marble veins have been exposed. The people who had come
to work in the mines live in pitched tents. That particular settlement
was entirely made up of migrants from Sawai Madhopur district.
The present mine sites are on agricultural land, surrounded by
land were cultivation is still going on. The water flowing down the
irrigation channels was seen to be full of white scum due to in large
chunks of boulders flying into farming compounds.
Men and women working in the surrounding agricultural land run
serious risk of being hit by these boulders. Instances of low-lying
agricultural land being flooded due to water released from the mines
are also common. Marginal landholders who face the brunt of the
impact have the least say in the villages. The general sentiment in the
villages, especially the powerful and the influential opinions, remain
pro-mining. Inside the Jamuva Ramgarh sanctuary in Jaipur district,
there exists a large soapstone mine. Countless dolomite and marble
mines exist inside villages at Dausa too.
There was considerable difference in the way people perceived
mining in these areas. The landed people of the community owning
large tracts of land, were able to higher prices for their land sold to the
mine owners, but the poorer people with less tangible assets were
caught up in the fast deteriorating environment. The prospect of the
proliferating mines, the large heritage hotel coming up in the area, the
proposed helipad, the planned construction of a national highway
cutting across the area, were all seen as signs of positive
development. Whether one can consider this as the general sentiment
in the area or not, it was obvious that this was the perception of a
sizable number of the articulate population. A number of ‘rags to
riches’ stories were also bandied about within ten minutes, as proof of
prosperity. The rising land prices were cited as the first tangible gains,
followed by employment generation.
Our reading of the situation here was very disturbing. On the one
hand mining seemed to be intensifying and the general public
sentiment was looking at if as a means of achieving short term and
quick monetary gains. Purely judicial measures would be inadequate to
check the growing menace of mining in this area if people who live
here do not see a solid case for defence.
TBS (Tarun Bharat Sangh)
Tarun Bharat Sangh has been campaigning against illegal mining
inside Sariska wildlife sanctuary for several years now. It was the
organization that filed a writ petition in the Supreme Court, which
resulted in the Supreme Court decision of 1991, ordering the closure of
215 mines. In 1993-94, TBS undertook soil and water conservation in
19 villages falling within the Sariska buffer area under Eco-
regeneration program and attempted to provide employment to the
erstwhile mine workers. In 1996-98 TBS undertook similar campaigns
against illegal mining in the Jamuva Ramgarh sanctuary area in Jaipur
district.
It cannot be said that all people are unanimously promoting
mines. Among stakeholders, hierarchies are bound to exist. Many
would have more to lose than gain from the situation, this besides the
large and irreparable loss of the forest and fertile lands. The situation
is indeed complex and critical.
Theoretically, TBS has adopted the most logical method of
functioning. The organization’s approach has been localised. This had
entailed:
identifying the causes for disruption of local environment; for
instance, the indiscriminate and illegal mining in the Sariska
region.
evolving possible solutions to the problem, both immediate like
filing a writ in the supreme court as well as long-term planning
like the undertaking of eco-regeneration work to reduce the
dependency of the local population on exploitative mining
sector.
Having identified mining activities as having a detrimental effect
on the environment and livelihood of poor, the organization has
applied legal pressure. This proved effective as the enterprises
were on shaky grounds, operating from protected areas.
There are 19 villages inside the Sariska wildlife sanctuary spread
over an area of 800 square kilometres. TBS with all its excellent
documentation backup and being the winner of a legal situation would
have to roll up its sleeves and look for allies among the local
populations. To build up local resistance to contain the occurrence of
such activities, attempts are to be made to provide alternative
livelihoods to the people. To be convinced about the need to resist
such encroachments is required for any intervention. Since within the
concerned area varied and diverse needs have to be addressed, there
has to be some balance among the variety of stakeholders. But first, is
there identification against a common adversary? If not this must first
be created.
TBS’s considerable efforts at environmental regeneration, superb
achievements in themselves, might remain decontextualised due to
lack of claimants.
Summarising Intervention Efforts
nterventions that have taken place in the mining sector of the
State are primarily of three types and each has achieved some
tangible results. But follow-up activity is needed if the gains
accrued so far are to be built upon:
I Mining activities in protected areas have been opposed and
some gains have been made. However the lack of community
participation has hampered the realisation of gains achieved
through judicial intervention. There is an urgent need to identify
ecologically fragile areas and oppose initiation of mining
activities in these areas.
Much of the NGO work in Rajasthan is aimed at enhancing the
power of mine workers to improve their living and working
conditions. Greater involvement of the people should be
facilitated to bargain for improved entitlements and basic rights.
Regeneration of natural resources and their effective
management must be promoted as action in this front is slow.
Intervention options need to be more focused, taking into
account the complex regional variations. At present the
intervention areas as well as the mandate is too broad for the
intervenors who are located in specific areas and whose spread
is limited.
Upholding The Law
fter all that has so far been achieved, upholding the law to
improve livelihoods and the environment is now the imperative
that the intervenors are facing. To elaborate, during the past
three decades, exploitation of Rajasthan's mineral resources through
unscientific and illegal mining has created an environmental and
human disaster. The fragile ecology of the desert has been severely
damaged, threatening the livelihoods of tribal inhabitants (adivasis) of
the Thar Desert, who used to rely on agriculture for subsistence but
have been forced because of persistent droughts to work most of the
year as miners.
A
Although outsiders are not by law allowed to mine in the region,
they do, and today these illegal mine operators employ more than 1.5
million miners, mostly dalits and adivasis, who work for less than
minimum wages in hazardous conditions.
A current Foundation grant to the Mine Labour Protection
Campaign (MLPC), a network of NGOs, activists and environmentalists,
is providing seed capital for the formation of fourteen cooperatives
made up of local adivasis to bid for mining leases. For the past year
MLPC has worked with the adivasis to raise awareness about their
legal rights and to help them acquire leadership and negotiating skills.
The goal is also to allow the local population to retain the benefits from
the land they have lived on for generations.
In October, the first of the cooperatives, made up of 81 adivasi
families, succeeded in winning a lease near Udaipur. Cooperative
members contributed INR 40,000/- towards the cost of the lease, and
although this is just four per cent of the total cost, it gives them a
significant stake in what happens to the land. MLPC has worked with
the cooperative and with the local government department of mining
and geology to develop a strategy to extract the mineral wealth from
the land without further degrading the environment. Now that the
cooperative owns the lease and will be able to retain the profits from
the mines, livelihoods are expected to improve. In addition, the
cooperative is obligated to spend five per cent of its profits for
providing better health care and education to the families in the
region.
Every month, MLPC conducts follow-up workshops to monitor the
cooperative's progress and to help identify leaders within the
community. The long-term goal is to develop awareness throughout
the state, that adivasis have legal rights to the land and the
wherewithal to exercise those rights to improve their livelihoods.
Here we profile Jethwai Mine Workers’ Cooperative, which is
Rajasthan’s first mine workers’ cooperative set up by Bhils, a tribal
community. Mine workers of this community have reached the
pinnacle after forming a cooperative in Jethwai village of Jaisalmer
district.
Seeing the abysmal condition abounding the workers and
indignities heaped on them by the mine owners, Mine Labour
Protection Campaign (MLPC) stepped in 1999 at Jethwai. MLPC
engaged in organising mineworkers in Rajasthan since 1994 lend a
helping hand to form mineworkers union at Jethwai. In August 2001
‘Pathar Khan Mazdoor Union’ (Stone Mineworkers Union) was formed
with 95 members to address the pernicious issues confronting them.
To counter the onslaught and free the workers from the vortex of
oppression, the union raised matters like timely payment, safety
conditions for mine workers, shelter, register attendance, regular
employment, access to provident fund and proper compensation in
accident cases.
Pathar Khan Mazdoor Union functioned as key facilitator and
intervened whenever the rights of the mine workers were violated.
Formation of union in Jethwai created ripples in the village, particularly
in restoring the rights back to mine workers. But this did not bring a
sea change particularly in fulfilling the genuine requirements of
community such as ensuring wages for every worker.
MLPC worked with the mine workers of Jethwai to become the
owners of the resources of the mining. The purpose was to give them a
sense of ownership and dignity by forming co-operative. The idea of
forming co-operative for mining activity was a new experience for the
mineworkers. With the support from MLPC, Pathar Khan Shramik Theka
Sahkari Samiti Limited (PKSTSSL) was registered in November 2002 to
facilitate the mine workers to take up mining leases. It is one of the
India’s first mining co-operatives. Heralding a new beginning in the
lives of mineworkers from Bhil community, who dreamt for decades to
start and operate a mine.
“Prior to formation of cooperative MLPC organised meetings and
workers to sensitise us on the benefits of forming co-operatives. A 7-
day training camp was organised at Jethwai in which Central Workers
Education Board (CWEB) Regional Director, RS Mathur, gave us basic
tips on forming co-operatives. In this training camp, there were 40
participants out of which 17 became members of the co-operative.
Others were reluctant to get involved in the co-operative as they were
afraid of losing their jobs in the mines. However, they were interested
to join the cooperative but their huge indebtedness pulled them back.”
said Narayan Ram, a member of the cooperative.
Jethwai’s Pathar Khan Shramik Theka Sahkari Samiti Limited is
an assemblage of 17 mineworkers that undertakes activities as an
enterprise to earn profit out of their labour. The profit earned is
equally distributed among the cooperative members, the mineworkers.
Since acquiring leases to extract minerals, the cooperatives have been
earning considerable profit.
“The private mine owners ganged up against us to delay the
allotment of leases to our cooperative. Even the patwari did not show
up for months to measure the allotted land. Our cooperative were
allotted two leases of one hectare each, on paying a dead rent of INR
20,000 per hectare in September 2003. Only Bersi Ram and I started
working and others finally joined in December 2003. But, when we
started we had no crane to remove the big stones during mining
operation. Even the private mill owners were creating hindrances in
our way by put pressure on the agencies, from where we hired the
cranes. Moreover, hiring a crane from outside for INR 40,000 per
month, which we thought was sheer wastage of money. To purchase a
new crane at INR 9.5 lakhs for the cooperative was another challenge.
With INR 4.5 lakhs as a non-interest loan from MLPC, INR 2 lakhs
financed by UCO Bank and INR 2 lakhs of the cooperative, we brought
a crane in June 2004. After having this crane, the production of our
cooperative has gone up by 20%,” said Kanha Ram, the Cooperative’s
President.
Despite constant pressures from private mine owners the
PKSTSSL, earns enough profit to pay our INR 30,000 as monthly
instalments to UCO Bank. It is also able to raise considerably the
income of its members.
Khushala Ram, a member of the cooperative, is quite ecstatic
narrating his freedom from the exploitative clutches of the private
mine owners. “Now I earn INR 200 a day, twice what I got earlier from
the same amount of work. Earlier, we used to work for 10 days putting
backbreaking work from 6 a.m. to 9 a.m. Then we have to waste 5 to
10 days running after the thekhedar (contractor) to get our wages.
Apart from extraction and processing work, mine workers have to load
the stones in the truck, for which they were not paid. But now we are
paid by the truck owners for the loading job,” said Khushala Ram.
Khushala Ram and sixteen other members of the cooperative earn
around INR 4,000 to INR 5,000 a month. They used to earn between
INR 1,500 and INR 2,000 and always were in debt as there was no
timely payment.
“Mineworkers are born in debt and die with debt. Most of the
debt is because of medical expenses incurred for elders in family who
have spent the prime period of time working in mines and acquired
occupational diseases like silicosis. While forming the co-operative at
Jethwai we encouraged mine workers trapped in bonded labour to join
the cooperative, but there was reluctance. MLPC extended monetary
help to free the workers from the trap of the mine owners. One
month’s food grain was lent to the member by the cooperative, which
helped to free them from the bondage. This experience was a lesson
to all the mine workers in Jethwai. Even it helped the cooperative and
the villagers to put pressure to ensure that the mine owners pay fair
wages to the workers,” said Kishen Lal Jakhar of MLPC.
MLPC’s relentless endeavour has been able to bring change in
the lives of mineworkers. Through its support, our co-operative has set
an example in strengthening and empowering of mine workers in
Jethwai. Our cooperative regular interacts with the mine owners for fair
wages, duty hours and other benefits the mineworkers are entitled for.
Even our cooperative has initiated the process with the village
panchayat to ensure justice to the villagers who work as mineworkers
and check unauthorised and illegal mining,” said Kanha Ram.
“Workers engaged by private mine owners had to stay put either
under the open sky or in small huts covered with tin sheets on stone
pillars just two and half feet high. In the sweltering summer or freezing
cold, it was the only shelter available to the workers, where they could
enter in a sitting posture. Inside the hut, the inner space was also
insufficient. But now at the mine owned by the cooperative, we have
built a room and a well for workers so that they can rest, whenever
they need after putting up a hard labour,” added Kanha Ram.
Members of the co-operative have paid off all their debts. Earlier,
they used kerosene lamps at night but now all of them have electricity.
Most of their children were forced to leave on the account of family’s
increasing debt now they are back at school. “It was quite difficult to
arrange square meal for the family when we worked under private
mine owners but now we have been able to free ourselves from our
impoverished condition,” said Narayan Ram.
Pathar Khan Shramik Theka Sahkari Samiti Limited INR 2,000-
2,500 for a truckload of limestone weighting 15-20 tonnes and a truck
produces around INR 12,000-15,000 worth of limestone in three to
four days; the money is equally distributed among the three to four
members who quarried for that particular truck. “Since we get tired
doing three to four days of exhausting work, we need at least one
day’s rest. So all members do not work at one time,” said Kanha Ram.
Seven to eight truckloads of limestone, quarried in a month, earn
the Jethwai cooperative around INR 84,000- INR 96,000. The
government charges a royalty of INR 65 per tonne. After paying out
INR 50,000- INR 65,000 to its 17 members, the rest of the money is
used to pay the monthly instalment for the crane. The constitution of
the Jethwai cooperative provides for the equal distribution of 25% of
the accumulated profits among its members annually. The rest is used
to further develop the cooperative.
On track to pay up its bank instalments within six months, and
the MLPC money in 22 months, the cooperative is well on the path to
success. Wage rates range between INR 50 and INR 150, as opposed to
INR 30- INR 100 working in the private mines. The village is also
demanding the rehabilitation of mines and tax rights over mining in
the area. Aware of the environmental implications of mining activities,
workers at the cooperative have resorted to pit filing and the planting
of trees.
Taking the cue from the formation of mineworkers co-operative,
Women have formed a 20-member strong Self- Help Group (SHG)
under the nomenclature ‘Laxmi Swamsahayata Samhu’. The SHG
builds capacities of its members in making detergent, incense sticks,
toothpaste and powder, candles and pain relief ointment so that they
are independent enough to run their household. The SHG also runs a
small shop that provides villagers with all their daily requirements
right there in the village.
Within a span of four years, the cooperative’s activities had a
cascading effect on the empowerment of the villagers who have so far
been neglected and kept out from the development process.
Management of natural resources have improved, and Jethwai today is
definitely a better place to live in. Now cooperative assists the village
panchayat in checking illegal and unauthorised mining. This would
have had a benevolent impact on a landscape, which is ravaged by
indiscriminate mining and destruction of habitat. In Jethwai, where the
cooperative owns a mine, villagers have taken a decision to impose
fee on mineral extraction so that the panchayat can generate revenue
from mining for using it for the development of the village.
Now it is mandatory to obtain ‘No Objection Certificate’ (NOC)
from the panchayat for obtaining mining lease. Keeping the villagers’
welfare and its surrounding supreme in the mind as a direct fall out of
it villagers have been able to establish themselves as leaders in their
own right. It had inspired other gram panchayats of Jaisalmer district
to start playing proactive role in village level development
programme, particularly on issuing of NOC for mining leases and
protecting the traditional livelihood system. These panchayats are
developing their village environment management plans so that the
mining activities do not damage their natural resource and livelihood
support system.
Observations
n South Rajasthan mining areas, most of the hard labour work
involved in extricating the blocks was done by tribals who had
migrated from neighbouring tehsils at the behest of contractors. In
some of the mines near Sariska area in Alwar district, men and women
in the ranks of the unskilled category of labour were migrants from the
neighbouring districts of Sawai Madhopur and Jaipur.
ISome of the locals near Tilwadi village were actually employed in
medium level jobs like keeping accounts, driving the tractors, etc. in
the mines in the area.
The sandstone quarry stretches near the Keru area in Jodhpur
district has a mixture of locals and migrants from Barmer district. Both
Makrana and Jodhpur being centres of old mining activities have early
generations of migrants now settled in clusters near the mining areas.
Some of these areas in Jodhpur are named after the communities that
came and settled there. It is important to understand these differences
as they play important role in organising the community.
In the mining areas irrespective of the region, men and women
do different kinds of work. On the whole there are fewer women
involved directly in the mining activity. There are various reasons for
this. The Keru area in Jodhpur district has more than two thousand
sandstone quarries.
The work involves extricating neat pillars and slabs of sandstone
from the rock faces using nothing more than a hammer, chisel and a
measuring tape. Considerable physical strength is required to be able
to wield the hammers, driving in the plinths and cutting out the slabs.
The division of labour is clear. The men do work involving hard labour.
Women are involved in loading small broken pieces in the truck
or helping to clear the initial earth and rubble that is essential before
the actual sandstone layers are exposed. In comparison to the Udaipur
district, there were more women employed in the soapstone mines.
Soapstone mines in Jharan, bordering Alwar district have many women
working there despite a certain level of mechanistion in the area. The
women are hired to perform specific tasks like carrying the small
pieces and doing the straining of fine soapstone powder.
In Makrana there are hardly any women to be seen in the marble
mines though the case was different few years ago when there were
fewer machines and women operated manual cranes. The wages given
to the women are lower than what the men earn. But their
representation is low and employment is irregular. In rare cases the
daily wages can be higher than the minimum wages. In Jodhpur and
Makrana the wages are comparatively better than in South Rajasthan.
Interventions based on standard definition of minimum wages
might not be able to address the complex, exploitative systems of
payment in the mining areas. Besides the irregular system of wages, it
is the activity itself, which is extremely damaging to the person
performing it. It is a high-risk activity. To assume that people are
unaware of it would be making a mistake.
The precedent of a person’s shortened life expectancy and
general damage to health, after a stint at the mines, are things which
the community knows. They might not use the exact medical terms
but they are extremely familiar with the outcome. There are two key
points therefore in the intervention. Firstly, the community must be
convinced that something can be done about the existing situation and
secondly, that it can happen only with their involvement. Looking at
the impacts of the present interventions, one realises, how difficult it is
to make a serious dint in functioning of the unorganised mining sector,
despite concerted efforts by concerned bodies.