The recent trend of converging focus on environmental issues, corporate social responsibility (CSR) and inter-related other issues have taken a prime space in the navigational system of mining and quarrying activities world-wide and India is not an exception. The main philosophy is that these measures would mitigate or lessen the severity of the negative impacts of mining on the local environment and social trauma. Mining and quarrying at large are supposed to affect local hydrology, produce harmful impacts of air-borne dust, land degradation, divertion of surface drainage pattern, water pollution,loss of valuable top soil and vegetation cover. In fact mining becomes a major source to alter the local ecological balance of habitats and landscapes. On the other hand post mining not only leaves some waste dumps but also awfully fearsome post extractive sites. One very important non tangible aspect of the mining process is noticeable impact over local social dynamics in both directions including sustainability of livelihood and damaging issues running concurrently at all stages commencing from the point of mine operations commencement, end of mining activities and post mining closure .Socioeconomic impacts of mining activities may be divided into two groups viz,individual workmen related which cover working and living conditions, the health, issues of child and women employment, education, welfare etc and community related which cover, role of migratory workforce, mechanization,change of land values and titles, women employment etc.

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Final Social Impacts of Kota Stone Mining
Social Impacts of Kota Stone Mining
A. Hussain
Introduction
The recent trend of converging focus on environmental issues, corporate
social responsibility (CSR) and inter-related other issues have taken a prime
space in the navigational system of mining and quarrying activities world-wide
and India is not an exception. The main philosophy is that these measures
would mitigate or lessen the severity of the negative impacts of mining on the
local environment and social trauma. Mining and quarrying at large are
supposed to affect local hydrology, produce harmful impacts of air-borne
dust, land degradation, divertion of surface drainage pattern, water pollution,
loss of valuable top soil and vegetation cover. In fact mining becomes a major
source to alter the local ecological balance of habitats and landscapes. On the
other hand post mining not only leaves some waste dumps but also awfully
fearsome post extractive sites. One very important non tangible aspect of the
mining process is noticeable impact over local social dynamics in both
directions including sustainability of livelihood and damaging issues running
concurrently at all stages commencing from the point of mine operations
commencement, end of mining activities and post mining closure .Socio-
economic impacts of mining activities may be divided into two groups viz,
individual workmen related which cover working and living conditions, the
health, issues of child and women employment, education, welfare etc and
community related which cover, role of migratory workforce, mechanization,
change of land values and titles, women employment etc.
History
This paper is based on the study of social impacts of Kota stone mining
carried out in Kota and Jhalawar districts of Rajasthan. Rajasthan is vested
with a number of 67 different minerals and natural stones including marble,
sand stone, Kota stone, granites etc.
Kota and Jhalawar districts are mainly agriculture oriented districts and are
located in the southern part of Rajasthan. Mining areas are localized in a belt
lying in the southern part of Kota district and northern part of adjoining
Jhalawar district. This belt is pinned by 24033’ to 24050’ north latitudes and
from 75
0
50’ to 76
0
04’ east longitudes, with an approximate area of 500 sq
kms. Geologically, the area is composed of Aravali; extensions, Vindhyan
undulating foothills and in between plain area criss-crossed by small riverlets
and seasonal water sources. Kota stone is a minor mineral and comes under
the category of cheap dimensional stones and mostly used for flooring
purpose. Kota stone mining has a long past history, and some of the old
British period buildings prior to 1850 A.D. have used this stone for flooring. A
tomb constructed in 1842 AD by Capt. Forster of Shekhawati Brigade in

2. memory of his dead son employed Kota stone as flooring. The tomb is located
in Jhunjhunu town. The quarrying of Kota stone goes even beyond of 1800
A.D. but the mass-scale systematic mining operation of Kota stone only began
after the presence of Associated Stone Industries in 1945. However, the
earlier Kota stone mining was based upon primitive manual systems where
mules and donkeys were employed to move overlying waste material and
finished products from quarry floors to salable material stocks. Some of the
old mines are still nomenclatured on the name of beasts of burden employed
therein. This type of activities required a huge workforce and inducted
migratory labour force from adjoining districts of Madhya Pardesh. Works
were seasonal, and mining activities were closed at the time of monsoon
arrival and could be restarted after Dipawali season. Obviously the scale of
activities was low and workings were confined to shallow depths. At the same
time the competition in the decorative stones spectrum was also relaxed.
Sand stone had not entered into the flooring area, granites were rare, and
marble has its own glamour and space. The workforce size remained
inadequate until unless it was further reinforced with women and child
labourers who came along with migratory workforce. Working conditions were
difficult, there were hardly labour enforcements protecting paid wages,
working hours and other welfare look-outs. Introduction of mechanization in
later years have made some radical changes and cut-down the size of labour
force, eliminated migratory workforce induction, women and children
employment considerably. However, the mechanization created another set of
environmental problems, i.e. requirement of increased virgin land for mining
activities, land for large size waste-dumps and diversion of surface water
drainage patterns etc. This radical transition had left with its own socio-
economic transformations. This paper solely takes a close look at these socio-
economic transformations linked with Kota stone mining in Kota and Jhalawar
districts.
Study Scope
The study carried out to find various socio-economic impacts of Kota stone
mining covered a period of six consecutive years commencing from 2006-07
to 2011-12 and the scenario confined to a selected mining localities around
Chechat town in Kota district and Jhalawar town. Kota and Jhalawar districts
of Rajasthan jointly have proven reserves of 100 million tonnes of acceptable
quality of floor grade splittable lime stone, better known as Kota stone.
Current trend of yearly mining of 60 to 65 lakh MT stone requires about 100
Ha. land every year. The mining is basically a semi-mechanized operation
wherein overlying waste material is removed by mechanized means and the
exposed stone layeres are worked upon by engaging semi-skilled artisans
largely known as Kargiars. Finished material slabes are manually loaded into
trucks and transported to quarry tops, unloaded, sized and collected into
different size stacks. Except the overburden removal activity entire operation
is manual and need a large workforce.
Employment Status
Table A shows the volume of Kota stone production during the period of study

3. and requirement of virgin agricultural land for mining and waste material
disposal.
Table – A
Kota stone production v/s land requirements
Year Production in MT (in
lakhs)
Total Land requirement
in Hq
2006-07 30 55
2007-08 40 74
2008-09 45 83
2009-10 40 74
2010-11 50 93
2011-12 55 102
As said earlier the mining of Kota stone is primarily a semi-mechanized
operation and need a sizable workforce. The size of this work force was many
fold times larger in the earlier times, when removal of overburden was also a
part of manual activity. The deployment of zhirri cutting machines and JCB
type of small loading unites has brought down the workforce to a minimum.
Table – B shows the current trend of workforce engaged for mining activities.
Table – B
Employment of Miners in Kota Stone Mining works
Year Production in MT Total Employment
2006-07 3000000 753000
2007-08 4000000 1004000
2008-09 4500000 1129500
2009-10 4000000 1004000
2010-11 5000000 1255000
2011-12 5500000 1380500
Interstate Migration
Prior to mining, land use pattern in Kota and Jhalawar districts is agricultural
based and land requirements for mining purposes make a number of farmers
unemployed, who to sustain their livelihood has to work in the mining
activities with the only left-out alternative in this region. This is a continuous
process and table – c shows loss of farming land and working hands
becoming unemployed in farming sector during the study period.
Table – C
Loss of farming hands
Year Loss of farming
land in Ha.
Working families
becoming
unemployed
Working hands in
farming sector
becoming
unemployed
2006-07 55 62 265
2007-08 74 89 372
2008-09 83 105 438
2009-10 74 112 504
2010-11 93 81 403
2011-12 102 116 583
As said earlier, some of the family members were contacted to find out their

4. changed status of living and type of new employment. The results are shown
in table – D
Table – D
Status of changed livelihood after disposing off agricultural land for mining
activities
S.No Years No of
Family
members
contacted
Persons
shifted to
other
place for
agriculture
Persons
working
in
mines
Persons
shifted
to
other
district
due to
closure
of their
mines
Persons
engaged
for
other
than
mining
works
Unemployed
1 200-07 82 5 43 23 5 6
2 2007-08 168 8 96 38 8 18
3 2008-09 132 12 70 18 6 26
4 2009-10 172 11 123 18 9 11
5 2010-11 118 16 32 47 8 15
6 2011-12 142 10 58 46 7 21
The results confirms transformation of farming occupation to mining and later
on migration to other places either for exploring alternative jobs or to carry
out agriculture after buying new agricultural properties somewhere else. A
sizable number of persons, who lost their land to mining activities, became
miners, but at a later point of time they were again forced to migrate to other
mines in the adjoining districts once the mineral deposits in the working
mines were exhausted or workmen found better paying jobs elsewhere. This
happened at a rapid time frequency since the sterilized mining leases are
sized only to 4.0 Ha limit.
This is an internal migration phenomena associated with Kota-stone mining
practices; and reflect a negative situation.
Inflow Migration
Mining activities in Kota and Jhalawar districts used to be labour intensive and
with time and increased space for mechanized operations shifted its
dependence on manual segments. The high demand of working hands could
not be full filled by the locally available working force and therefore depended
upon a sizable import of migratory labourers from neighbourning districts of
Madhya Paredsh. Apart from this some of the mine owners preferred migrant
labourers to locals on the ground of their hard working nature, less
demanding and more ameanable to dispute settlements. Major source of
migrant workers was Jhabua district of Madhya Paredsh and most of the
workers or all most all the workers used to be Bhills, a scheduled tribe. These

5. people face a very restricted livelihood in their home district and there existed
no alternative livelihood for them.
The recruitment for these labourers used to be through some middle man,
who maintained long term relationship with an area or group of persons
available for quarry works. Some advance payments are given, recoverable
later on from their earnings. These migrants can be divided into two groups,
viz.-
1. Migrants of first group have some land and a house and do quarry
works to augment their lean ex homely income. Normally they travel
down alone and keep their families at home.
2. Second group of migrants are extremely poor and don’t have
anything of substance at their homes and travel with their women and
children, who used to work with male members.
However, increased mechanization, better emoluments in Gujrat, introduction
of Mahatma Gandhi national Rural Employment Guarantee Act has almost
brought down the migrant workers to a zero level in Kota stone mining
activities, which is evident from the table – E.
Table – E.
Migrant labourers in Kota Stone Mines
Years Percentage of Migrant workers in the
Quarrying
2006-07 23%
2007-08 11%
2008-09 9%
2009-10 4%
2010-11 9%
2011-12 -
Role of Women
Semi-skilled operation of cutting stones, sizing etc was never a domino of
women workforce in Kota stone quarries. Women were employed to load and
remove rejects coming out from the quarry operations. Most of the rejects are
innate in formation and a substantive quantum is released from the stone
cutting process. While the stone cutters, locally known as Karigars, keep
making sizable stone slabs by way of lifting, splitting and dressing, Women
workers were assigned to keep the place clean of resultant debris and ready
for further movement. This is an auxiliary but essential service to provide a
sustainable production. Women workers removed all the process rejects and
loaded them into tippers used to carry the unwanted material to waste dumps.
Women workforce also works alongwith their male counterparts in loading
finished material in trucks for final dispatches.
The introduction of JCB type machines on quarry floors for loading and
removal of rejects, the works became less and less dependent on the women
employment, as is shown in table – F, which shows the number of women
workers employed vis-à-vis total number of workers in a representative
Chechat based Kota stone mining group.

6. Table – F
Participation of women in Kota stone Mining workforce
Year Total workers Women workers Percentage
women workers
2006-07 308 28 9.1
2007-08 278 18 6.5
2008-09 378 32 8.4
2009-10 418 20 4.8
2010-11 438 18 4.1
2011-12 218 12 5.5
The presence of women labourers further dropped down due to
implementation of MNAREGA, where better wages and facilities were available.
MNAREGA provided less arduous workings and fixed working hours in addition
to close to their home working sites. It was a pleasant departure from the
throttled livelihood workings.
CHILD EMPLOYMENT
Children as a general rule are not employed in the mining areas. However,
some small children may be found playing around the stacks, while their
mothers were working in the finished material stocks located on the surface.
As there is no one to take care of these children at home, the working mothers
bring their children to the working sites.
Loans
Workers working in the Kota stone mines invariably demand loans, which are
either given by the quarry owner or a middleman so fixed up by the owner.
These loans can be classified into two categories i.e. small loan given for a
short period and recovered from workers in the next pay installment and
larger loans are demanded on the pretext of investing at home, festival
celebrations, family members sickness etc.. None of these loans are charged
with interest and repayment period is fixed at the time of loan disbursement.
In normal course entire loan amount is repayable in one season workings. If
the worker wants to change his job from one mine owner to another, the
unpaid amount becomes payable form the new employer to the previous one
and the new employer recover the amount form the wages of the concerned
worker. Quarry owners do not have any mechanism to exercise sanctions
against defaulters except that such workers are discouraged to get further
works in nearby quarries. These loans are personal in nature and family
members remain immune from the effect.
Quarry owners advance these loans to secure the loyalty of workers and their
skill. The loan amount is decided on the reliability and character of the
workers.
Health Issues
The periodontitis is one of the very common diseases prevailing in Kota stone
mines. Most of the Kota stone workers consume tobacco in the form of
chewing and this habit puts them exposed to oral health deterioration,
bleeding and destructive periodontitis is most prevalent in all age groups of
workers. Periodontitis is a teeth-gums diseases which results due to setting
up of a microbial community on the tooth surface, which later on gets

7. embedded in a matrix of polymers of bacteria’s and salivary organs. If it is not
removed, the tooth plaque gets mineralized to form calculus, which initiates
the inflammatory process of the peridontitis. This results in tooth loss and
mobility.
Pulmonary problems are a common ailment in almost all the mining activities.
Traumatic bodily injuries are very common, due to manual lifting of heavy
weights.
Social Problems
Alcoholism as a wide spread vice is common in and around all the stone
quarries. The traditional cheap local liqueurs are easily available at different
places and workers spend major part of their income on alcoholism.
As earlier said the use of chewable tobacco is another social problem.
Law and Order
The excessive use of alcohol and introduction of migratory working force has
given a new dimension to law and order problems. Petty crimes, altercations,
thefts in mining areas are on increase.
SURFACE AND GROUND-WATER REGIMES
The rain-water accumulated in the pits during monsoon months is pumped
out and drained to some far distanced waste land to dry-up and absorbed by
ground. This action is carried out just after end of the monsoon season so
that water submerged productive benches are made free for mining
operations. This excessive pumping causes overflooding in some of the
agricultural fields lying on the banks of water drainage channels, and loss of
crops results. At the same time continuous water pumping lowers down the
temporary water table in the nearby areas causing losses to the farming .
Table – G, shows the depth of temporary water table from the ground surface
in three water wells located within 500 mts. radius from a Kota stone mining
area. (Depths are taken in October)
Table – G
Temporary Ground Water Table Status in Wells
Year Depth of water
table from
surface (Mtrs)
W-1 W-2 W-3
2006-07 25.30 28.20 22.80
2007-08 28.12 30.68 27.12
2008-09 23.18 24.63 20.16
2009-10 29.16 36.12 22.18
2010-11 32.40 44.15 23.15
2011-12 36.18 47.13 25.65
The problems were further aggravated by the unidirectional water drainage
from the waste-dumps, causing water logging in some of the adjoining
farming lands which affect the crops. Transportation of solids along rain wash
and their blanketing over the neighboring agricultural lands is another
problem engineering a social unrest.

8. Impact of Blasting
Blasting is resorted to break hard rocks overlying the Kota stone benches.
Almost all the mines use deep hole blastings, where ground trimmers travel
down to local residential areas. Most of the mining areas are situated close to
residential villages or new constructions and in this process, some of the
houses get affected due to blast generated ground seismic waves, and this
results into a social cacophony against mining 7activities. In fact apart from a
real problem, it is a hyper created by some of the vested interests for their
own gainful maneuvers.
SOCIAL UPLIFTMENT
Invariably almost all the skilled and semi-skilled and unskilled manpower
required for quarrying comes from scheduled tribes and scheduled cast,
background, and mining activities has helped them to improve their financial
conditions. In villages the economical upliftment of tribals and scheduled cast
workers working in the mines has brought material advancement for
individuals and in this way reduced the social gape with upper casts. However,
it has brought some unrest in society, centering on the labour problems, as
the availability of cheap labourers for misc. farm workings have come to an
end.
CULTURAL IMPACTS
The financial improvement and inter state cultural exposures have revived
many new cultural events. Ganesh Pooja, Vishvakarma Pooja etc are
celebrated with great fanfare. Generous contributions are made by the quarry
owners for all sort of cultural events including annual urs functions celebrated
at some of the Muslim saints tombs. Quarry owners also organize annual
Cricket competitions, where winners are given attractive prizes and financial
assistance.
IMPACT OF QUARRIES ON LIVELY HOOD
Quarrying is primarily a source of income for local livelihood strategies, and
may provide both direct and indirect employment and sources of income to
local households. It has got some beneficial and non beneficial impacts, which
are outlined as below benefits.
The main benefit of quarrying as discussed earlier is, it being an
important source of income directly to the workers and indirectly to the local
markets. In addition to these benefits, some other benefits are –
1. Available of medical facilities
2. Credit facilities
3. Group insurance covering all the working hands
4. Education provisions including financial assistance extended by the
Lime Stone Miners Welfare Society to the workers covering educational
expenses of their wards.
5. Infrastructure development- local panchayats are being given a

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payment of Rs. 50/- truck carrying Kota stone from the mines to
market. This payment is made to local panchayats for local
infrastructure Development.
6. Employment – Quarrying generates employment for all categories
including skilled, semi skilled and unskilled.
7. Housing – Limestone Miners Welfare Society provides workers
financial assistance to construct their own houses.
8. Ecological Balancing. An amount of Rs. 10/- MT is collected by the
State Govt. for afforestation and other environmental restoration
works.
Disbenefits
The quarrying has brought down a number of disbenifits most of them have
already been discussed earlier. Negative aspects of quarrying as felt by all the
actors are given below –
1. Loss of agricultural land
2. Loss of grazing land
3. Loss of forest
4. Quarry waste dumps affects the cultivation
5. Reduced ground water
6. Pollution
7. Dust pollution
8. Diseases
9. Forced migration to explore alternate livelihood.
Regarding wider social problems, the alcoholism is most important vice
engulfing quarry working force, followed by gambling, domestic violence,
altercations etc.
(A. Hussain)