New Delhi, A new report on Thursday showed that household incomes depleted by more than half after the mining ban in states like Goa, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Odisha and Karnataka.
According to the report by Forum for Integrated Development and Research (FIDR), women and children are the “worst sufferers due to the policy decisions to close down mining. 70 per cent of those surveyed felt that mining had helped create jobs for them in the first place.”
In the survey, 65 per cent of the respondents said their family lives were under severe strain and was further getting destroyed “due to indebtedness, bankruptcy, violence from moneylenders, drinking and other social vices”.
As per the survey, 27 per cent of the respondents stated that mental instabilities have increased due to livelihood stress. This response came with the highest numbers in Goa, the report noted.
Majority of those surveyed said that legal instability and a weak mining policy has encouraged rapid depletion of investor confidence, leading to uncertainty regarding the future of mining in India.
As much as 90 per cent of the respondents were vocal about the decline in real estate prices, which severely impacted economic activities which were supposed to provide alternative livelihood options.
As per the FIDR survey, in the five above-mentioned states, mining contributed to over 12 per cent (on an average) of the state GDP.
Mining came to a halt in Goa in March 2018 after the Supreme Court quashed 88 mining leases and banned extraction of fresh iron ore.
