Children - Terre des Hommes

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around coal, but to also provide a glimpse into the lives of
children, which could be similar to those living in coal mining
regions in other parts of the country as well. The case study is
drawn from visits to specific mine sites in Hazaribagh which
is one of the largest coal mining belts in the country. Mining is
often projected as leading to economic growth and progress of
the local population. The case study was undertaken to analyse
the extent to which these assumptions are accurate from the
perspective of the status of children living and working in the
coal mining region.
The case study was undertaken in some of the mine sites of
CCL in Jarimari region of Badkagaon block, Urimari project
area in Hazaribagh district. Field visits include meetings with
community leaders, women’s groups, mine labour, youth,
school teachers, and other community service providers
like ANM, anganwadi teachers, sarpanchs’, and also officials
from the company, the district authorities, forest, revenue
and labour departments in order to understand the impacts
vis-à-vis children’s access to food, safe drinking water, social
security, education and health.
History of the Coal Mining Project
CCL is included in the mini-ratna group of companies. The
coal projects of CCL in Hazaribagh area are divided into
south Urimari project and north Urimari project. CCL was
re-organised in the year 1986 into two separate companies—
Northern Coalfields Limited and Mahanadi Coalfields
Limited (MCL). At present CCL has 11 areas, 65 mines,
(26 underground and 39 open-cast), seven washeries (four
medium coking coal and three non-coking coal), spread over
2,600 sq km of Ranchi, Hazaribagh, Giridih, Bokaro, Chatra
and Palamu districts of Jharkhand state, having coal reserves
of 33.562 billion tonnes (medium coking coal 14.023 billion
tonnes and non-coking coal 19.539 billion tonnes). During
2006-07, CCL produced 41.35 million tonnes, its highest
ever production.
The Urimari project of CCL is one of its open-cast mega
projects. It was established in 1973 with a maximum
productive capacity of 1.3 million tonnes per year. From 1973
onwards it is situated in Jerjera gram panchayat, which is the
south Urimari project. This project spreads across 14 adivasi
villages. The major areas under this project are Potanga,
Jerjara and Urimari, which account for 60–70 wards as a
whole. There are at least 84 revenue villages in the Badkagoan
block of Hazaribag district.
The Mining Activities and Its Impact
on Children
The local people, the officials of CCL and the local NGO,
Swaraj Foundation all agreed that coal mining is expanding
and more areas of land are coming under coal extraction.
The once rich agricultural belt has today been converted into
large coal pits where no other livelihood is possible other than
mining. As these are open-cast coal mines, the continuous
digging for coal on vast stretches of erstwhile agricultural
lands in the thick forests of the Eastern Ghats, is said to have
caused serious environmental and health problems for local
communities, especially children.
Coal extraction is considered as one of the most polluting
mining activities and has serious implications on climate
change concerns. Yet India’s agenda of coal expansion in the
coming decade to meet its energy demands with 70 per cent
of this being met from coal-based power, implies that a large
population of children, especially adivasis and dalits, who live
in the coal mining region of the central Indian belt, in the south
like Tamil Nadu and parts of the northeast like Meghalaya,
will suffer from serious long term impacts. Moreover, most
of the coal is found in some of the most backward states and
regions like Chattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand,
the santhal region of West Bengal, Orissa and Andhra
Pradesh.
Child Labour in the Hazaribagh Coal
Mines
Very few employees of the Urimari project are from the local
adivasi villages. On the other hand, the local people work as
casual labour and many of the mine workers are children and
youth from the surrounding villages who were displaced from
their land. They are involved in loading and unloading the
trucks. Each day 70–80 trucks ply on this road making 300–
350 trips in total. Each truck requires 15–18 labourers to
load the coal where groups of families from the surrounding
villages or migrant families work together. It was observed
that in almost every group four to five workers were below
the age of 18 and the majority were barely 20. Many of these
adolescent workers were adivasi girls and also young mothers
who bring their infants to the mine site. Interviews with the
workers revealed that majority of the workers are drop outs
from school and rarely does one find a youth who has gone up
to the level of class XII.