AFTERSCHOOOL CENTRE FOR SOCIAL ENTREPRENEURSHIP 

CASE STUDY
ON MINING
WORKERS IN
BIKANER
by :
DR. T.K. JAIN
AFTERSCHO☺OL
centre for social entrepreneurship
sivakamu veterinary hospital road
bikaner 334001 rajasthan, india
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Bikaner is the heart of Thar, the Great Indian Desert. The communities of the Thar
AFTERSCHOOOL CENTRE FOR SOCIAL ENTREPRENEURSHIP 

Desert in Rajasthan are home to some of India’s most important sandstone, plaster
of paris, bajri and silica mines. Bikaner also has a lot of Bajri mines (Bajri is type of
sand which is used in construction industry). The mines are a major source of work
after agriculture. While government estimates put the number of mineworkers at
two hundred thousand, according to unofficial estimates, there are close to 1
thousand mineworkers, most of whom work in improper / illegal / unauthorised
mines.

According to a team from the National Campaign for Labor Rights, a normal day for
a mineworker means 12 hours of work without access to even basic facilities like
drinking water or a shaded place to rest in between work. Accident in the mines are
frequent and often result in serious injury. 90% of the workers have to bear the cost
of these injuries themselves. Bajri workers do mining at their own risk. Some do it
because they dont have any other source of empoyment. The combination of injury
and ill health results in an average life span of 55 years for the mineworker.

Rajasthan as a state lags far behind the national figures for infant and maternal
mortality rates. The Rajasthan Sample Registration System estimated that in 1998,
infant mortality rate was 83 per thousand live births in Rajasthan, while it was 72 at
the national level. Women and children are impacted by malnourishment and
other nutritional deficit syndromes. In the mining areas the problems are even more
acute. Most mines do not have any medical facility and given their remote
locations, are not accessible to Public Health Centers (PHC). Even in many areas
where the PHCs exist, there is serious dearth of medical staff resulting in many of
them being defunct.

The high rate of injury and ill health forces the mineworkers to borrow from the
mine owners/contractors, leading them into a debt trap and causing them to spend
their lives in debt. The mineworkers barely earn minimum wages (children earn
$0.6 per day, women $0.75 per day and men $1.6 for unskilled / semi skilled labor
and $2.1 per day for skilled labor) and do not get any compensation for injuries
sustained at work. A worker is deprived of wages if he/she is unable to report for
work due to sickness and injury. Most mineworkers come from the Dalit (lower
caste) community and have no land to fall back upon or any other livelihood
opportunity. While the sandstone mines contribute over $30 million to the state
coffers, the mineworkers are left to live in desperate conditions with no basic facility
for themselves or their families. There are very few groups or trade unions working
to ameliorate the living and work condition of the mineworkers.

Ceramics industry is thriving at the cost of mining industry. The government has set
up Ceramics laboratory in Bikaner, but there has been no step for improvement of
AFTERSCHOOOL CENTRE FOR SOCIAL ENTREPRENEURSHIP 

mining technology in Bikaner.

Case Discussions :
1. Can you study this situation and identify possible solutions
2. What should NGOs do here to help these workers?
3. Bajri workers – who work on their own – have no caretaker – can any
solution be found out to help them in their mining process and
technology