Dukhabandhu Sahoo

Environmental Impact of Coal Mines on the Local Inhabitants: a Case Study of North Eastern Coalfields, Margherita, Assam Dukhabandhu Sahoo

Coal mining is an essential and core industry which helped in the economic and industrial development of almost all the industrialist countries of the world. Despite the positive impacts, we cannot ignore the negative impacts of coal mining which are related to the contamination of environmental quality. Health being an integral aspect of manpower formation, is gaining importance in economic literature. There are three components of health ? physical, mental and social health that are interrelated to each other and among this physical health is of utmost importance. The physical health depends on the surrounding environment, workplace environment etc. to lead a healthy and disease free life it is essential to have a pollution free surrounding environment. The people residing near the coalmine areas are vulnerable to various health related complications due to the pollution caused by the effluents generated from the coalmines. It is an essential requirement to assess the pollutants emitted from collieries and their impacts on the health of the local inhabitants, which will lead to a sustainable development of our country.