Nutrition Of Coal Mine Workers ( A Case Study Of Korba Coal Mines , Chhattisgarh )

Coal mining with perspective of health is a crucial area in India. The health condition of mine workers including women and children is one of the most serious impacts of mining. Workers not only suffers from external environmental situation of mines also they faces reduction in quality of life due to denial of access of food availability livelihoods. India, in this aspect poses a much more dangerous situation as coal mining is in developing stage here. Despite people suffering from several forms of environmental diseases, physical and mental deformities, poor nutritional status, occupational hazards, constant exposure of chronic diseases as a result of mining, there is a tragic gap in the availability of ̳scientific‘ data on hazards of mining in India and specially coal mine workers. This is the root cause of mining industries to walk away from their responsibility towards the health of workers community. The apathy, lack of understanding the human values ,absence of strong political will and gross corruption in the government enhances the scope of coal industry to continue with impunity .As health issue is considered ―technical and ―scientific‖ part of any industry , the complains and evidences from worker community are brushed under the carpet as the relationship between mining management and workers is not based on humanities and the ill-health problems are tackled by the law implementing, monitoring and judicial authority on the pretext of improper and inadequate scientific collaboration.(MMP,2003) Our developmental policies, especially in the context of economic activities like mining; mine worker‘s health is an important index for human growth and development, because coal like energy source is still the basic of up gradation of quality of life. Hence mining is one of the Industries that influence the health condition of surrounding area. How true is this in the context of India that rural, tribal as well as urban poor, who ignore their bodies for the extraction of minerals. Nutrition along with environmental diseases is also an important issue in the mining area. Logically it is due to absence of nutrients the efficiency of work is affected badly so proper nutritional intake is the prime necessity. Although the availability of nutrients in food is dependent upon the geographical environment of an area but socio-economic factors also play an important role in this regard. So the interrelating study of geo-economic environment and nutrition is prime requirement while considering heath of coal miners. As our newly formed state Chattisgarh is having rich mineral recourses, as coal, iron ore. bauxite, dolomite, lime stone even diamond, so mining industries are the base pillar of our economy . Also a significant part of our population is engaged in mining, so every relevant study is of community importance, especially coal mining sector Nutritional assessments indicates the nutritional health of an individual through nutritional assessment of the coal mine workers, it is easy to identify the level of nourishment of coal mine workers that ultimately an essential aspect to formulate the health case community development program to improve the overall health scenes of the Korba coal mine region