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Coal mining and its unfavourable consequences have generated global attention. It has further stimulated the paradoxical debate of development and desolation in the contemporary scenario. Since the coal resources are profusely available in India and it is comparatively less expensive, the country has been largely relying on it for its essential and non-essential consumption needs. Coal resources indirectly fulfil many of the modern requirements and comforts. Consequently, mining of minerals in general and coal in particular has become the prime focus. It helps to generate revenue, augment industrialisation and promote employment opportunities in India. Despite these progressive features, the opencast coal mining activities impose serious threats to the livelihood of the local communities. Based on critical review of the relevant literature, the article seeks to exhibit the mineral reserves and coal mining activities at global, national and regional context. The paper has incorporated a special focus on Odisha—a resource-rich state located in eastern part of India. Particularly, the two existing major coalfields—Talcher and Ib valley, situated in western part of the state—have been emphasised. The manifold adverse externalities of the coal mining practices on the livelihood pattern among the affected people have been assessed. Furthermore, the paper aims to examine the mining-induced threats on different livelihood capitals which has given rise to multiple risks and challenges. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With growing demand for mineral resources and favourable policy towards the mining sector, developing countries have become investment hubs for mineral extraction, which has changed the socioeconomic and ecological scenarios particularly in rural areas. Extractive industries such as coal mining generate negative externalities that bring irreversible changes in the local ecological conditions, which adversely affect the local economy and threatens the sustainability of local livelihood systems. The objective of this paper is to analyse the effects of coal mining on local traditional livelihood systems in the eastern Indian state of Odisha. The study is carried out using household level data collected from four mining villages located in the Ib valley coal field of Odisha. The problem of sustainability of local traditional livelihoods is examined in the light of economic theories of sustainability (e.g. weak and strong sustainability) and sustainable livelihood approach (SLA). The results show that rural households in the mining area experience both positive and negative outcomes from the coal mining activities. The expansion of mines has provided employment to locals directly as well as indirectly, which has helped to increase financial as well as physical capitals. On the other hand, the reduction in the provision of ecosystem services due to adverse effects of coal mining resulted in lower yields in traditional livelihood activities such as forest, agriculture, and animal husbandry. The paper suggests that in order to effectively internalize the externalities arising from coal mining and maintain the sustainability of local livelihood system in Odisha, there is a need to reinvest some part of resource rents in regeneration of natural capital of the region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Undoubtedly, coal is playing an important role in shaping today's world. But, excessive extraction of coal has created several adverse effects on the local economy as well as on the global economy. In this study, the households' vulnerability to coal mining operations is assessed by taking two indicators, i.e., the livelihood vulnerability index (LVI) and livelihood effect index (LEI) in active coal mining and non-mining villages of Talcher Coalfields region of Angul district of Odisha, India. The mining village has shown more vulnerability than the non-mining village in both indices. In LVI, natural disaster, climate variation, and environmental quality (NDCVEQ) indicator is the dominant factor that greatly impacted the overall vulnerability level of the households followed by water (W), health (H), and finance (FIN). Out of the five capitals of LEI, natural capital and financial capital have been affected more due to coal mining activities in the mining village, than the non-mining village. This reflects that households in the mining village are more susceptible to various environmental related issues, and hence, they need to adopt adequate measures to cope up with the issues created from mining operations. Additionally, the mining companies are needed to undertake effective steps to curtail the negative externalities and protect the interests of the local inhabitants. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Reforms of the Indian mining sector go back as far as 1991. The present round of reforms, however, fails to address the most important part of the mining sector: coal mining. A big reform has to be introduced to allow the coexistence of both public and private sectors in commercial exploitation of coal resources for the energy needs of the country. It is important to at least attempt to quantify the tangible financial benefits of the present reform accruing to the mining industry directly or indirectly. These aspects cannot be bye-passed as they strengthen the arguments for a true overhaul of the entire legal system governing the mining sector. In order for the mining sector to realize its full potential, more steps than those in the reform need to be undertaken to create a conducive environment for the industry to flourish. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Quality assessment as well as hydrogeochemical characterization of 45 representative groundwater samples around Umrer coal mine area was undertaken. The pH of the water lies in the normal range i.e. from 7.5 to 8.5, the electrical conductivity varies from 826 to 1,741, the total hardness varies from 289 to 1,302 and the TDS values range from 528.6 to 1,114.2 mg/l which reflects variation in lithology and thus, the distinction in hydrogeological regime. The cation chemistry is dominated by Ca and Mg while anion chemistry is dominated by Cl and HCO. Out of total ten hydrochemical facies, the two dominant facies are Mg-Ca-HCO (37.7 %) and Ca-Mg-SO-HCO (17.7 %). The groundwater in the study area, in general, is useful for drinking and domestic use; however, it has marginal utility for irrigation purpose. Standard US Salinity Laboratory classification shows that water of the study area belongs to C2-S1 and C3-S1 classes. The concentration of 9 trace elements analysed from 18 samples did not exceed the desirable limit. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present study investigated the chemical composition of wet atmospheric precipitation in India’s richest coal mining belt. Total 418 samples were collected on event basis at six sites from July to October in 2003 and May to October in 2004 and analysed for pH, EC, F−, Cl−, $$\rm SO_4^{2 - } $$ , $$\rm NO_3^ - $$ , Ca2+, Mg2+, Na+, K+ and $$\rm NH_4^ + $$ . The average pH value (5.7) of the rainwater of the investigated area is alkaline in nature. However, the temporal pH variation showed the alkaline nature during the early phase of monsoonal rainfall but it trends towards acidic during the late and high rainfall periods. The rainwater chemistry of the region showed high contribution of Ca2+ (47%) and $$\rm NH_4^ + $$ (21%) in cations and $$\rm SO_4^{2 - } $$ (55%) and Cl− (23%) in anionic abundance. The high non seas salt fraction (nss) of Ca2+ (99%) and Mg2+ (96%) suggests crustal source of the ions, while the high nss $$\rm SO_4^{2 - } $$ (96%) and high $${{{\text{SO}}_{\text{4}}^{{\text{2 - }}} } \mathord{\left/ {\vphantom {{{\text{SO}}_{\text{4}}^{{\text{2 - }}} } {\left( {NO_3^ - + C1^ - } \right)}}} \right. \kern-\nulldelimiterspace} {\left( {NO_3^ - + C1^ - } \right)}}$$ ratio signifying the impact of anthropogenic sources and the source of the acidity. The ratio of $${{{\text{SO}}_{\text{4}}^{{\text{2 - }}} + NO_3^ - } \mathord{\left/ {\vphantom {{{\text{SO}}_{\text{4}}^{{\text{2 - }}} + NO_3^ - } {\left( {NH_4^ + + Ca^{2 + } } \right)}}} \right. \kern-\nulldelimiterspace} {\left( {NH_4^ + + Ca^{2 + } } \right)}}$$ varies from 0.03 to 3.23 with the average value of 0.84 suggesting that Ca2+ and $$NH_4^ + $$ play a major role in neutralization processes. The assessment of the wet ionic deposition rates shows no any specific trend, however Ca2+ deposition rate was highest followed by $$\rm SO_4^{2 - } $$ and $$\rm NH_4^ + $$ . [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The recent global scenario in the mineral sector may be characterized by rising competitiveness, increasing production costs and a slump in market price. This has pushed the mineral sector in general and that in the developing countries in particular to a situation where the industry has a limited capacity to sustain unproductive costs. This, more often than not, results in a situation where the industry fails to ensure environmental safeguards during and after mineral extraction. The situation is conspicuous in the Indian coal mining industry where more than 73% production comes from surface operations. India has an ambitious power augmentation projection for the coming 10 years. A phenomenal increase in coal production is proposed from the power grade coalfields in India. One of the most likely fall-outs of land degradation due to mining in these areas would be significant reduction of agricultural and other important land-uses. Currently, backfilling costs are perceived as prohibitive and abandonment of land is the easy way out. This study attempts to provide mine planners with a mathematical model that distributes generated overburden at defined disposal options while ensuring maximization of backfilled land area at minimum direct and economic costs. Optimization has been accomplished by linear programming (LP) for optimum distribution of each year's generated overburden. Previous year's disposal quantity outputs are processed as one set of the inputs to the LP model for generation of current year's disposal output. From various geo-mining inputs, site constants of the LP constraints are calculated. Arrived value of economic vectors, which guide the programming statement, decides the optimal overburden distribution in defined options. The case example (with model test run) indicates that overburden distribution is significantly sensitive to coal seam gradient. The model has universal applicability to cyclic system (shovel-dumper combination) of opencast mining of stratified deposits. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]