Prof. Dr. P. K. Jena

Minerals are most important natural resource for the development of major industries of the present world and these are to a great extent responsible for our socio-economic development. In most places, whenever the minerals are available under the ground, the earth crust is covered with valuable forest resources as well as water resources in the form of streams and rivers. In order to mine the mineral resources particularly in case of open cast mining, it is necessary to remove most of the trees and plants as well as the top soil.

Due to unplanned mining in many cases the water resources of the region are also damaged. Further, during mining a lot of overburden and other mine wastes are generated and dumped at the mine site. India is rich in various mineral resources and most of the major industries are mineral base. Due to unscientific mining in our country most cases a lot of other resources like forest, water and top soil are destroyed as well as a lot of displacement of the local people takes place.

Mineral resources available in the mines are found to be of different grades. While the high grade minerals can be utilized directly for generating energy in case of coal or extracting metal values in case of metallic minerals or producing cement and refractries in case of non-metallic minerals, the low grade ones which are much larger in proportion have to be beneficiated to obtain the useable grade.

In the process of beneficiation, a large amount of tailings and effluents are generated and discharged to the surroundings. In this way, starting from mining of the minerals up to producing the required grade ones, a lot of environmental disturbances and loss of resources take place. In addition to these, the human settlements in those areas have to be displaced causing a lot of problems for their settlement in new areas.

Some of the environmental and socio-economic problems in this process are:
a) Loss of large amount of trees, medicinal plants, herbs etc.
b) Disturbance and destruction of hydrological system of the region.
c) Loss of most valuable top soil.
d) Wastage of space due to dumping of overburdens.
e) Release of large amount of solid wastes and effluents to the surrounding areas and water bodies.
f) Loss of wildlife eco-system of the region.
g) Displacement of human habitation / settlements and
h) Air and water pollution in the region resulting in health hazards.

However, in order to develop our socio – economic conditions through industrialization, we have to harness the mineral resources. But while doing so, we have to asses the loss of the resources and environmental disturbances caused due to mining and mineral beneficiation and adopt various environment friendly technology to mitigate these losses.
In view of all these, it has been essential to have an integrated mine area development programme while harnessing the mineral resources so that the area can remain productive and environmentally healthy. It may be mentioned here that, about three decades back the author initiated an Integrated Mine Area Development programme named as MAHA (Mine Metals and Habitat) and successfully implemented the MAHA programme in two typical mines in India namely chromite mine at Kaliapani, Odisha and lime stone mine at Lambidhar in Uttaranchal. The objective was to make the mine most productive while protecting its environment and making the area most useful even after the completing of mining operation. The activities and the benefits derived in such a programme are summarized below:

a) Proper Planning and implementation of modern mining practices to obtain maximum amount of mineral resources of various grades and protecting the safety of mine workers.
b) Beneficiation of low and off grade minerals for production of more amounts of high grade ones which are suitable for follow up industries with better economy.
c) Proper storing of overburden and top soil so that subsequently the overburden can be used for back filling of mined areas and the top soil can be used for plantation on the barren and back filled areas.
d) Massive afforestation in degraded and back filled mine areas for production of wood, fuel, fodder, oil seeds etc.
e) Protecting the water resources in the region and rain water harvesting in the mine pits in order to considerably enhance the water resources in the region to meet the requirements for drinking, plantation, agriculture, pisci culture and mineral beneficiation.
f) Proper storing of beneficiation tailings in order to avoid land and water pollution and utilization for construction of low cost houses and mine roads.
g) Suitable rehabilitation of affected families in order to meet the needs of the local people and creating congenial atmosphere for running the industry smoothly and
h) To implement Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) programme for Improving socio-economic conditions of the local people and the families of the workers.

In this way the environment friendly mining would help in conserving and better utilization of our resources. It is suggested to take up such programmes in each and every mine in India so that, we can derived maximum socio economic benefits in an environment friendly manner by utilizing the mineral and other resources properly. In this regard, the Government of India along with the concerned State Governments should revise the National Mineral Policy and implement those properly. It may be emphasized that as the mineral resources are essential for our industrial and socio economic developments, we have to fully utilize these keeping our environment clean.

Thus, while improving the socio economic condition of rural India where most of the mines exist, we can restore pre-mining environment by undertaking some of the above mentioned programmes. In addition to this, environment friendly mining of minerals supports the maintenance and socio economic development of local communities through provision of education, employment, infrastructure, training and social programme, compensatory packages and empowerment of woman.

(Dr P K Jena is the former director general, Council of Scientific & Industrial Research, India)