Learning from field work about mine worker situation

                     Learning from field work about mine worker situation

Learning from this last month helped to discover the reality of the mining field and the situation of mine workers. And how the all politics and caste system, exist in this field. India is a caste based society and its impacts we can see in mine field also. Caste is the thing which can be easily find in any area of India. And this minefield is also affected of this caste system. And here I am trying to put some light on issues which are related to this area of mining.

Issues of Mine workers

There are many problems are facing by mine worker in Jodhpur but here I am trying explain in some major point.

1.Mine and Health :

Mine work is very dangerous because it directly impacts on t

he health of the mine workers. And here in this work workers have to do drilling on stones and because of this drilling stones reduce the dust. And according to mine worker mine owners don’t provide proper safety guards to mine workers and also they do not do wet drilling because of this during working mine workers inhale the dust by breathing in their lungs and that becomes cause of the silicosis disease. And symptoms of silicosis are similar to tuberculosis so many times people can understand that it is the silicosis disease and they start to get treatment of tuberculosis. That is why many workers had died in this area. And there is not solution of this diseases. The prevention is the only solution of this disease. And once a mine worker get affected by silicosis he or she have to die. The economic condition is also not good and they can not get proper treatment and can lives some more days. And there are no good doctors in Jodhpur who can handle these type of cases and mostly they transfer these cases to Ahmedabad in Gujarat. Rajasthan government provides one lakh rupee if someone identified as a silicosis patient but it is not enough for the treatment. And three lakhs to the family of the patient after his or her death.

2.Mine and Education issue:

Education condition is very worst here. Most of the mine workers are no even 10th passed. There are no good schools for mine workers children near their house. They have to go little far. There is dropout rate is very high and there are many reason behind this. Like mine worker can not give time to their children because they have to go early for the work and after that children sometimes go to school and sometime do not not go to school. And economic condition is also a reason behind this because the economic condition of the mine workers family are not good they earn very low wages so they need help to run their family so many children have to droop the school for helping their family. After 14 to 15 years they started o find work.

3.Mine and Gender problems:

Gender discrimination is also an issue here. In mine contractors give less wages to women as compared to men by saying that they do less work as compared to men. Where a man gets 300 rupees/day there a woman get only 150 to 200 rupee/day. During these day I found that many women are widows here because their husbands have been died because of silicosis and other reason like alcohol addiction and in accident in mines. Domestic violence is the problem here because many mine workers come their house after drinking vines and fight in their house and beat their wives.

4.Mine workers and their economic condition:

The economic condition of mine workers is very poor. They have to do work more than 8 hours in a day their average wage is around 300 rupee/day. And in this time it is very difficult to manage in 300 rupee. Where they have to spend on their children’s education and food. And they have to do cultural, religious and family occasions that time also they have to spend money also. According to mine workers they can not manage in this much money that they earn by working in mines. On the occasions they have to lend money from the local money lenders on the high rate of interest. Which they can not payback on time. Sometimes they can not get money from money lenders so that time they have sell their jewelry for money. Their living condition is also not good many families of mine workers even do not have pakka house and they are still living in the kacha houses. Where they live there are many problems like there is no pakka roads in their villages, water scarcity, electricity problem etc.  

Mine and Caste and Tribal Question:

This aspect shows the Indian reality because here in jodhpur mostly mine workers come for mainly two categories SC and ST. There are no other categories mine workers I found and according to mine workers there is only two categories are engaged in mines Meghwals and Bhils only. There is need to look it by caste angle because this work is very dangerous for mine workers life and they get very low wages because of they are not growing. And the interesting thing is that no other categories or so called upper caste people not engaged in this work. Here by seen this we can make sense that after many years the situation of Dalits and trials are not good. If they leave their caste based occupation instead of that they have to engaged in this type of jobs there is very less value of their life.