For a dying silicosis patient, a govt scheme that offers hope

This scheme empowers mining districts to levy a charge on all mining operations to create a fund that would be used to mitigate harmful effects of mining and to benefit local people

Pratappura village (Bhilwara district), Rajasthan: In the early 1990s, at the end of a drought that stretched over three years, an 18-year-old Deva Singh took up work at a nearby sandstone mine. He was grateful for the Rs 15 a day it paid because there was no other work in his primarily agricultural village. Now 42, Singh has been diagnosed with silicosis, a disease caused by fine silica dust released from mineral mining operations, for which there is no cure.

At the mine, Singh and fellow miners were given no protective gear. Within 10