Coal Mining and Access to Livelihood Capitals: Mines and Non-mines Affected Villages in Jharkhand (India)

Abstract

This study aims to evaluate the situation of livelihood capital utilisation, its major
determinant and rising inequality in its utilisation during economic transformation. It
uses primary data of 416 sample households from predefined compared groups (viz.
mines exposed versus non-exposed villages) which was collected under the crosssectional
research designed by a structured questionnaire. The principal component
analysis, bivariate, logistic regression, iv-probit 2sls regression and concentration
index (CI) are used to achieve the study objectives. The odds ratio shows that mines
affected villages were less likely to utilise natural capital. Although it had a
significantly higher likelihood to utilise social, physical, economic capitals compared
with their counterparts. Besides, the odds of human capital do not show any utilisation
differences between both residential settings. However, in the context of aggregate
utilisation of ACI, there is a significantly higher likelihood for mines affected villages.
The study applied iv-probit 2sls regression and found that mines generated income had
significant influences over ACI. The CI coefficient shows that in mines affected villages
social capital is equally utilised across all income class compared to other capitals. In a
nutshell, finite nature of coal-generated income has no sustainability; hence, it shows
an inverse association with livelihood sustainability.