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 cross-sectional 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.