22 August 2014

India’s quarry industry is leaving workers poverty stricken and consigned to a slow, choking death.
Thousands of quarry workers in Rajasthan are battling silicosis caused by inhaling dust containing crystalline silica, according to an India TV News report. Many have their health condition go undiagnosed. Their breathing problems are scarcely ever linked to the jobs they do; most are reduced to penury by their disability and medical costs.

Vikas Bhardwaj, secretary at the non-government organisation Dang Vikas Sansthan, said large numbers who had worked hewing sandstone from the quarries “have died mistakenly thinking they had TB.” The two conditions are linked anyway – silicotuberculosis is a recognised condition related to breathing silica dust.

Officially sanctioned quarrying of sandstone in the area dates back to 1920, Bhardwaj said, but the first officially recognised case of silicosis only came in 2011. “It was only as late as November 2011 that we realised that the people were in the grip of silicosis,” he said.

According to locals, Balram, 60, is the oldest surviving male in Karauli, a village of 3,000 people. They claim the disease has sapped away the lives of several men, mostly in middle age, leaving behind their widows. “No one survives here till 60,” remarked Prabhu Dayal, a silicosis patient himself.

Rajasthan has no accurate data on silicosis rates, as a consequence of a lack of resources to diagnose the disease and unchecked mining and quarrying in the state.

Over two million labourers are believed to be exposed to the dust, but there are only seven Pneumoconiosis Board centres to diagnose silicosis. The teams of three doctors at each centre only run diagnosis sessions on weekends.