India's shrinking coal jobs fuel 'distress' migration to cities

(Context, 23 Mar 2023) Declining job opportunities in India's coal hubs force young people to seek work in far-away cities where they struggle to find secure, well-paid employment.

Shashikant Midha learned to swim as a child in the river near his village in Dhanbad, one of India's largest coal-mining hubs, but he hasn't yet found time to dip in the pool at the apartment complex where he lives nowadays, far away in south India.

Working long hours on a car-assembly line in Tamil Nadu state, more than 1,700 km (1,056 miles) from home, Midha belongs to a trend of Indians migrating out of coal regions, triggered by dwindling and low-paying jobs in a changing industry.

At least 13 million Indians in the poorest regions depend on the country's coal ecosystem for a living, research from the non-profit National Foundation for India (NFI) shows.

But many of them risk losing their jobs and incomes as India starts to move away from climate-heating coal towards clean energy this decade, said a 2021 report from the NFI, a philanthropic organisation focused on social justice.

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Context, 23 Mar 2023: India's shrinking coal jobs fuel 'distress' migration to cities