A case study of the economic impact of mining in Goa: Perceptions of the reserved and General Population of a mining Dependent Locality

Mining has been an important industry in Goa for years. Operations of the industry were suspended due to orders of the Hon. Supreme Court of India. Much has been documented on the positive and negative effects of mining-the same often done by extreme pro and anti mining activists. The present paper is based on a field-based study involving households of a locality substantially dependent on mining being in close proximity to mining centres. Considering that the locality has a large number of people from ‘reserved’ backgrounds, the paper attempts to find if there was any significant association between the economic issues related to mining and the SC/ST, OBC and General backgrounds of the residents. The study which makes use of chi-square analysis, lists very significant findings, including those concerning the ‘reserved’ sections of population, and involving issues related to net economic effect of mining, health problems, government assistance for SC/ST and OBC sections etc.