Socio-Economics and Environmental Impact Studies Due to Mining at Bellary-Hospet Sector

Abstract

The Earth’s natural ecosystem is the fundamental part of our life-support system and is the basis for providing marketable goods to human and other living organisms. The Economic activity and the environment are inter-related, as all the economic activities are performed on the goods supplied by natural environment. The degradation of the environment relates to an interface between the goods and services that are provided directly or indirectly by the environment to the economy. The natural environment has always been exploited to fulfill human needs. The green revolution and industrial revolution has caused serious threat to sustainable development of both developed and developing countries. The urge of attaining rapid industrialization and the immediate transfer of benefits to local communities subdued environmental concerns of sustainable development. These inturn have led to the degradation of air, water and land, directly affecting the livelihood and human health. The environmental damage increases, as the economic activity increases, in view of the fact that the association between economy and the environment are multiple, complex and important. The identification and quantification of socio economic impact of environmental pollution caused due to increased mining activity is necessary in the broader economic analysis. The assessment of their monitory and non-monitory impacts helps in measuring benefits and costs of various production alternatives. The effect of pollution due to mining activity shall be quantified as a part of environmental assessment. They are included in the economic analysis as project cost to prevent the overall impact on the human being. There are various legislative measures and standards were put in place, with reference to the mining operations. Therefore present study was envisaged with the objective to identify and evaluate the impacts of mining activity on Social, Economical and Environmental Aspects of the area, to formulate suitable matrix for the measurable parameters with reference to iron ore mines and to develop a management tool for the existing operating mines in the study area. The data collected on the ambient air quality in the selected stations of study area reveals that increase in iron ore production has significantly contributed for deterioration of air quality combing with the transportation of ore without dust containment measures. The analysis has revealed that SPM concentration has reached as high as 310 µg/nm3 whereas RSPM has 160 µg/nm3, which is five times higher than the AAQM standards. The detailed data collected on socio-demographic status of the study villages reveals that the villages have lacuna in terms of having basic facilities like hospitals, schools, community centers, training centers etc, which contributes for up-liftment of living standards of the people. The study has also revealed that the respondents have incurred high “out of pocket” expenditure towards treatment for the diseases which are induce due to exposure for environmental pollutants either in the working mine leases or during transportation. This health cost is high in the study area of Siddapura and Jaisinghpur due to more number of leases vis-à-vis increase in workers working in these mines. The health data collected from the respondents have revealed, significantly more number of respondents are suffering from dust allergy, skin allergy in the study area, where there are mines and are working as workers in those mines, contributing for higher health cost incurred through treatment. The analysis of environmental management model suggests that the mining companies to implement effectively the principles of systematic & scientific method of mining adopting technical and biological reclamation techniques such as engineering measures viz-a.viz construction of scientifically designed soil erosion control measures.