1. E-mail: mihirdeb@gmail.com
ASM in India: definition; social, gender and legal concerns; recommendations
Prof. Mihir Deb
School of Environmental Studies
University of Delhi, Delhi

2. Definitional confusion
ASM in India is wide-ranging in mining practices, size, legality and production, giving rise to significant confusion over its definition.
It does not find any direct mention in government’s National Mineral Policy (NMP) and Mines & Minerals Regulations & Development (MMRD) Act
MMRD Act provides a 2-fold classification: Major & Minor minerals
The MMRD Act empowers the State Governments to frame their own rules for mining minor minerals. 73rd Amendment to the Constitution of India (1996), has a provision in the Minor Mineral Rules to obtain the recommendations of Gram Sabha or Panchayats for granting of leases in the scheduled areas.

3. Definitional confusion - continues
NMP mentions ‘efforts will be made to promote small scale mining of small deposits……In grant of mineral concessions…preference shall be given to the scheduled tribes’
Minor minerals include: building stones, gravel, clay, sand etc.
Mineral Conservation & Development Rule, 1988, identifies 2 categories of minerals: A & B, based on labour employment and standard of mechanical equipments used.
Category B apparently includes the smaller mines, which together constitute ~88% of all reported mines, producing 10% of the total value of mineral production.

4. Need for distinction between SSM & ASM in India
Small Scale Mining
Carried out with some mining rights under some statutory control.
Or illegally, with connivance of local officials
Organized operations
Provision of mining minor minerals in NMP-MMRD
Minimal data available
Artisanal Mining
Carried out by indigenous communities, mostly in remote locations, on and from common lands.
Unauthorized & non-legal
Informal, unorganized and unregulated operations
Confusion over jurisdiction and definition.
Total lack of quantitative data

5. Salient features of Artisanal Mining
Community level operation, often tribal communities
Employs large number of people from low income groups
Shallow or surficial nature of deposits
Labour intensiveness,
Semi or unskilled workforce
Manual operations or low technology deployment.
Small production and small income generated.
Range of minerals mined from gemstones, diamond, gold to gravels, sand & building stones; coal and lignite

6. Long historical tradition of Artisanal mining in India
Mentioned in Kautilya’s Arthashastra (oldest written record of mining policies and practices of the time) dated at 400 BC. Extensive ancient workings in different parts of India
Modern mining started during colonial occupation
Most legal frameworks of the present day were established during the colonial times to control the mineral resources of India by the British state.
European models of geology and exploration, labour relations and management techniques were introduced which altered many of the earlier systems, rendering traditional artisanal mining invisible and in some cases illegal.

7. Present status of ASM-SSM in India
A conservative estimate of people involved in artisanal and small mines and quarries is of the order of 3 million.
Confusion remains depending on the definition of what exactly is ASM/SSM and who is a miner.
From sand mining to stone quarrying, alluvial gold digging and coal ‘collection’, to licensed operations meeting local needs or exporting their products elsewhere within the region or in neighboring countries. Clearly, ASM/SSM occurs in scattered ways taking many different forms in different regions.
Indirectly, these informal practices (digging, cutting, panning, processing, breaking, amalgamating, carrying, transporting, and marketing ) together provide livelihood for at least 6 million people.
Recent liberalization of the economies has caused a large number of people to become jobless in the conventional fields. The displacement of rural workers from the agricultural sector has caused an exodus of labour, seasonally or permanently, from that sector.

8. Social concerns
High direct and indirect costs of informal work in the ASM sector:
long and unscheduled hours of work
lack of benefits and social security, education and health care
occupational health hazards
high indebtedness and periodic/seasonal shocks to work
insecurity of work and income from local officials, police and middlemen
variability and volatility of income, lack of training, and
lack of legal status, organization and voice.

9. Gender issues
In contrast to large-scale mining, the involvement of women in small-scale mining activities is generally high, performing multiple roles.
In the actual mining jobs, panning, processing, transportation and related jobs, the percentage of women vary from a low of 10% to a high of 50%.
The numbers have increased with decline in alternative occupations, such as forest-based livelihoods.
Most women come from poor, indigenous and marginal ethnic communities such as low castes with low levels of literacy and usually in younger age categories.

10. Gender issues in SSM
Jobs in SSM are sexually segregated . This leads to the unfortunate lack of identification of women as ‘miners’.
Women work in large numbers and are subjected to:
risky and manual jobs in the mines and quarries,
low wages (less then men) and often as part of family labor.
serious health hazards at times affecting reproductive health
sexual exploitation.
rare and unpaid holidays, unpaid pregnancies
Work without toilets or living facilities
women are never recruited as long-term wageworkers. They are almost always employed as casual workers or contract workers.

11. Legal concerns ASM - Illegal or Non-legal?
Is there an official market for the ASM product or are there middlemen and mafia involved? Who fixes the price?
Who are the stakeholders in a particular ASM activity? Is there a Union looking after the interests of ASM workers?
Is there a redressal mechanism available in SSM activities?

12. Glimpse of a survey conducted for ASM activity in primary lode gold deposit near Hosur, northern Karnataka, South India
About 200 people are involved in ASM activity; being women
Broadly family based practice where men enter the abandoned mines to collect the quartzose ore, children help them in the crushing activities and women are mostly involved in recovering the gold through panning and Hg amalgamation
Families earn Rs 300 to 500 weekly by selling about 2 gms of gold to a gold merchant
Villagers keep track of the market price of gold and its fluctuations through local newspapers which account for their variable earnings
They receive no aid from governmental or non-governmental agencies
Unaware of any kind of health hazard due to handling of mercury for gold extraction

13. Abandoned BGML shaft, Hosur

14. Innovative method of rock crushing

15. Panning of crushed rock

16. Women in the family help in panning

17. Hg globule added to extract the gold fines

18. Hg on hand of the panner: note the scar

19. Need of the hour….
Clear-cut definition and distinction between artisanal and small-scale mining in India
Legal status for artisanal mining in India
Developing a national database, monitoring and regulating ASM activities
Providing education, health care and marketing facility to the ASM workers

20. Recommendations: in the perspective of Millennium Development Goals
Recognition of the poverty alleviation potential of this sector. The World Bank (2002) does not see artisanal mining as strictly a mining problem ‘but rather as a poverty issue which must be addressed by a comprehensive approach.’
Establishing sustainable livelihoods for local communities in mineral-rich tracts.
Create a broader information base, including a database about the ASM.
Information and interpretation of their livelihood needs for developing policy measures.
Locate the responsible body (e.g. Gram Panchayats) within the administration to deal with artisanal mining, given the neglect of higher state bodies.

21. Recommendations continued
Review the existing legal frameworks in the country relating to mining as a whole and incorporating artisanal mining in it, and make them more realistic, unambiguous and pro-poor.
Provide this sector of concentrated poverty with suitable education, health care and training.
Women workers in many of the informal mines in India form the ‘poorest of the poor’. Therefore Gender sensitization of the stakeholders and targeting developmental interventions to women workers would have significant impacts on improving the livelihoods of millions of people.

22. Achievements
Above recommendations have been given to the Government of India, Ministry of Mines’ Working Group on Mineral Exploration and Development for the Planning Commissions’ Eleventh Five year Plan under Human Resource Development

23. Thank you