India’s growth ambitions have led to increased mining for minerals like silicon dioxide (silica), which is essential in construction.
Workers exposed to silica dust face a high risk of silicosis, a lung disease where silica particles damage lung tissue.
This risk affects workers of all ages and can be chronic.
In 1999, over 8 million people in India were exposed to silica dust, a number that has likely increased as more mines are opened and expanded.
The National Green Tribunal (NGT) has directed authorities to create new guidelines for silica mining and set up health-care facilities in silica mining areas to protect workers.
The Occupational Safety, Health and Working Conditions Code 2020 requires employers to report silicosis cases, but many mine operators do not comply, preventing effective oversight.
While medical practitioners are supposed to report silicosis cases, annual health check-ups have failed to detect many cases, with some mistakenly diagnosing silicosis as tuberculosis.
The lack of action from both the state and mining companies is the main barrier to addressing the problem.
The government’s failure to enforce laws undermines workers' welfare.
Many mines are located in states with low literacy, poor healthcare, and weak labor rights, where mining is a crucial income source, making it hard for workers to seek justice or medical help until it's too late.
Silicosis
Silicosis occurs most commonly in people working in the quarrying, manufacturing, and building construction industries.
Silica (SiO2/silicon dioxide) is a crystal-like mineral found in abundance in sand, rock, and quartz.
It is a progressive lung disease caused by the inhalation of silica over a long period of time, characterized by shortness of breath, cough, fever and bluish skin.
It is one of the most prevalent occupational health illnesses in the world.
It is also reported from the population with non-occupational exposure to silica dust from industrial as well as non-industrial sources.
Exposure to large amounts of free silica may not be noticed because silica is odourless, non-irritant and does not cause any immediate health effects
But long-term exposure is associated with pneumoconiosis, lung cancer, pulmonary tuberculosis, and other lung diseases.
Diagnosis is a challenge because it is difficult to even find out if a person has tuberculosis or silicosis.
The nodules that collect to form a mass can take up to 20 years to be identified in chest x-rays and the victim notices symptoms only after many years of exposure to silica.
Grossly, silicotic nodules are firm, discrete, rounded lesions that contain a variable amount of black pigment.
The nodules tend to occur around respiratory bronchioles and small pulmonary arteries.
In India silicosis is prevalent in Gujarat, Rajasthan, Pondicherry, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Orissa and West Bengal among the workers of construction and mining.
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