Children - Terre des Hommes

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their parents and were driven by poverty to take up work in
the quarries. Almost in all the places, the children said they
had similar health problems such as headache, fevers, body
pains and weakness of limbs due to the heavy work of stonebreaking.
Very few of the childrens have reached college level
education as they are unable to concentrate on their studies
while also doing such strenuous labour activities to support
their families.
There is not a single NCLP school in the surrounding area
the eight villages/quarry colonies; even though, almost 150
children are in the stone-breaking activities. Table 2.42 gives
details of quarry workers children in the eight sites surveyed
in Visakhapatnam district.
Social Impacts
Although the violence and social disturbance is not of the king,
as witnessed in large- scale mines or mining regions, there is
a clear impact on the education and health of the children.
Not only quarry workers put also local farmers are negatively
affected as this is a rich agricultural belt. Due to dust pollution
from the quarries and crushers, there is a perceptible impact on
the crop yields. The farmers are complaining that agriculture
is becoming unviable for them and that the marginal farmers
are becoming daily labourers in the quarries. Hence, there is a
visible impact on the local livelihood of the farmers.
Education is most affected as seen in the Table 2.42. The
mine labour work and the constant fevers and physical illhealth
have resulted in many children dropping out of school.
Dust pollution has created health problems for children of
the surrounding villages. The villagers complain that children
suffer from cough, cold and bronchial infections.
Stray cases of accidents by lorries carrying stones, have been
reported in the area, but the quarry owners do not take
responsibility for major accidents. Minor treatment or first
aid was given at the local PHCs when such accidents occurred
in the past.
(Acknowledgements: The survey in Visakhapatnam district
was undertaken by Society for Grama Vikasa Saradhy
(SGVS) on behalf of the current study and as part of their
activities with the quarry workers in the area of their work.
We acknowledge the work of SGVS and its Secretary, Ms. K.
Prabhavati who has conducted this survey with her team and
shared the findings with us for preparing the Andhra Pradesh
state report.)
Case Study: Chittoor District
Demographic Profile of the Region
A brief survey on the quarry workers’ children was
undertaken in three mandals of Chittoor district in
Andhra Pradesh, by Mitra Association for Social Services
(MASS), which is based in Palamaner. Palamaner mandal
is situated on the borders of the states of Tamil Nadu and
Karnataka and consists of 16 panchayats and 96 habitations.
Baireddipalli mandal is situated in the borders of Karnataka
state which consists of 24 panchayats and 102 habitations.
Peddapanjani mandal is situated in the border of Karnataka
state and consists of 22 panchayats and 302 habitations.
This area was selected because of the presence of clusters of
traditional stone-breaking communities and because of the
work of MASS with these communities.
Child engaged in stone quarry at Kaliberi
(Photo July 2009)
Socio-economic Status of the Quarry
Workers
Vaddi/Vaddera
(stone-breaking caste) community and some of them
belong to the SC community.
on stone-breaking as their main source of livelihood.
Some of them are marginal farmers but cultivate only
seasonally, as they have only 1–2 acres of dry-land, and
therefore, depend on the monsoons.
migrate to nearby cities like Bengaluru, Chennai
and surrounding towns to work in the brick-making
factories.