Jharkhand was created with promises of tribal self-determination and economic change. With abundant mineral resources and a key role in India’s industrial growth, it had the potential to improve its development. However, after 25 years, it still faces issues like poverty, hunger, and poor public services.
The state holds about 40 per cent of India’s mineral reserves, including coal, iron ore, copper, uranium, and mica. Since its establishment in 2000, Jharkhand has made significant contributions to national revenue. Yet nearly 30 per cent of its population lives in severe poverty despite the state supporting much of the country’s steel, power, and growth. This isn’t just a failure of results; it reflects a long-standing pattern of policy choices.
Jharkhand’s problems begin with how its economy functions and for whom. Key industries such as coal extraction, iron ore mining, and power generation require huge investments and are harmful to the environment, but they don’t create many jobs. Manufacturing employs only 9 per cent of the state’s workforce. Projects like the Adani Godda thermal plant and JSW’s steel expansions continue with government backing, displacing thousands and often failing to provide the promised compensation.
The pattern is clear. The state approves mining projects, companies take the resources and leave, and local communities are left with only displacement and dust. A 2024 Comptroller and Auditor General Report revealed serious issues with how people have been resettled and rehabilitated across major projects. Earlier, a 2023 Central Bureau of Investigation probe into the state’s Integrated Labour Management System found corruption in the very system meant to manage employment in the sector. Meanwhile, micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs), which could provide large-scale jobs, struggle to access credit. The state frequently promotes tourism, but visitor numbers indicate that the sector is far from reaching its potential.
The central government’s production linked incentive schemes, meant to boost industries, have ignored Jharkhand’s potential for jobs in favour of capital-heavy sectors that don’t need local workers. This is a deliberate policy choice prioritising profit over job creation.
Jharkhand’s official unemployment rate is reported at 3.9 per cent, according to the Periodic Labour Force Survey 2024-25. While this might be accurate, it lacks real meaning. This state, with just 2.5 tonnes per hectare average rice yield below the national 3.0, counts millions of smallholder farmers as ‘employed’; farmers who spend hours upon hours and get next to nothing, but who cannot do anything else. With 60 per cent of people employed in agriculture, the job itself comes across as the “last resort”.
The employment situation of the state has, in reality, a much more sobering story to tell, as the outward migration figures reveal. Over 20 lakh or 2 million people have migrated from the state, sending remittances of around Rs 25,000 crore per year; an appalling indictment which has somehow become the state’s de facto model of development. The young men in the state would rather take up jobs as masons in the Sahel, in Mauritania and Mali than take up employment opportunities in the state that offer virtually nothing comparable. For workers to choose to migrate to the most unstable region of the world and that too out of necessity shows how deep the flaws of the state economy are.
Even more worrying is that while updates in minimum wages are given on paper, they rarely translate into reality. As far as agricultural wages are concerned, there appears to be a distinct lack of monitoring that is failing to bridge the gap.
As far as hunger, mortality and basic welfare is concerned, the National Family Health Survey-5 reported a 39.7 per cent stunting rate among children under 5 in the state. The same hasn’t been reported in recent years. The maternal mortality ratio is as high as 94 per 100,000 live births and compares poorly with other neighbouring states. Although the public distribution system claims to cover 80 per cent of the population, malnutrition remains a major problem exacerbated by contamination of the water sources in the mining region through coal-leachate and unregulated waste disposal. Health centres run under Ayushman Bharat have reported a 40 per cent staff vacancy rate, and reports of deaths due to starvation are ongoing.
The comparison of inputs versus outcomes above demonstrates the obvious failure to achieve even the most basic of human welfare targets.
The Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) 2024 has brought out yet another grim statistic of the education system in the state: Only 52 per cent of Class 6 students in the rural areas can read a Class 2 text, as compared to the national average of 65 per cent. The percentage of Class 8 students who can do a subtraction is a paltry 22 per cent. Enrollment among girls drops sharply after Class 8, as inadequate sanitation, safety concerns, and economic pressures force many adolescent girls out of school. Teacher shortages remain an ongoing issue, and many schools lack functional toilets.
These are not just numbers; they highlight the lost futures of children in this state.
Jharkhand is one of the states where the Panchayats (Extension to Scheduled Areas) Act operates in theory. In practice, Gram Sabhas are often consulted as a mere formality and then ignored. Over the years, many mining agreements have been signed, raising doubts about whether consent requirements under the Forest Rights Act are truly followed. This has led to a consistent pattern of displacement among Adivasi communities in a state founded on the promise of protecting tribal self-governance.
The Pathalgadi movement that recently shook parts of Jharkhand was not about radical separatism. Rather, it involved communities erecting stones to remind the state of their rights. The state responded by filing sedition cases. One doesn’t have to look far to see what happens when tensions escalate.
In neighbouring Odisha, ongoing resistance from the Dongria Kondh communities has repeatedly forced the courts to limit Vedanta’s bauxite operations on Niyamgiri, most recently in 2024 when protests backed by a Supreme Court direction halted extraction again. However, this resistance has not stopped Vedanta. On April 7, 2026, police surrounded Kantamal village in Odisha at 3 AM, cut off electricity, broke down doors, and used tear gas against tribal communities protesting the road construction to the company’s Sijimali bauxite mine. Over 60 people were injured. The Gram Sabha’s objections to the mine, raised by eight villages, were ignored. The PESA Act was also supposed to apply there. Jharkhand’s Adivasi communities are taking note. They are not passive.
Jharkhand is one of India’s most vulnerable states to climate change, ranking fifth on the Global Climate Adaptation Index. The impacts are already evident. Floods claim around 200 lives each year, and temperatures hit 48°C during the summer of 2025. Forest cover has also declined due to mining-related clearances. Despite this, the state’s climate action plan hasn’t been updated since 2014.
A government assessment revealed that 23 of Jharkhand’s 24 districts are in sensitive or very sensitive climate zones. By some estimates, the state ranks among the least prepared in India to face climate-related risks. Nearly 70 per cent of its land suffers from soil degradation, including erosion and desertification, a higher percentage than even Rajasthan.
This contradiction is clear in the state’s river systems. Environmental impact studies confirm that coal mining has dramatically changed the hydrology of the Damodar and Subarnarekha basins, resulting in more frequent and severe flooding in these areas. Continuing such mining practices indicates a significant disconnect between managing environmental risks and prioritising economic benefits.
Ranchi, the state capital, has been ranked as the 4th dirtiest city in India according to the Swachh Survekshan 2025. Open garbage dumps, non-working sewage systems, and waste accumulating in public spaces are common sights. This is not a small town with limited resources; it is becoming a construction hub with new infrastructure rising daily.
In terms of air quality, Ranchi is among the ten most polluted cities in India. PM2.5 levels average 85 micrograms per cubic meter, nearly 14 times the World Health Organization safe limit. Coal trucks move freely through the city. There is virtually no public transit system.
Regarding women’s safety, the National Commission for Women’s NARI index for 2025, which surveyed over 12,000 women across 31 cities, placed Ranchi last with a score around 44 per cent compared to a national average of 65. Only one in three women experiencing harassment reports it. Among those who do, fewer than a quarter see their complaint officially logged. Of the registered complaints, action is taken in roughly one in six cases. The city’s inability to protect women isn’t due to a flawed system. These patterns highlight major gaps in addressing women’s safety.
Jharkhand has seen seven chief ministers in its 25-year history. Governments often get cut short or interrupted by President’s Rule. This instability shows a failure of democratic culture, but it also offers an excuse. No government stays in power long enough to be held accountable for ongoing issues. The 2024 Enforcement Directorate raids uncovered hawala networks linked to coal allocation in Jharkhand. This is part of larger scams across eastern India, with West Bengal cases alone exceeding Rs 2,700 crore. This indicates a broader patronage network within the sector.
Jharkhand’s needs are clear. It needs a labour-intensive industrial policy focused on textiles, food processing, and forest product value chains that create jobs instead of displacing workers. The state requires a minimum wage law and enforcement. It needs better credit infrastructure for MSMEs, investment in tourism, and improved school facilities and staff. A climate action plan should be created within this decade. PESA and FRA must be enforced as laws, not just performed as rituals. The central government must start seeing Jharkhand as a community, not just a place to extract resources.
None of this will happen without action. The state government in Ranchi has the main responsibility. Twenty-five years is long enough. However, the central government’s occasional indifference to Jharkhand’s situation also needs to be examined. A developed Bharat that extracts resources from Jharkhand while leaving it in poverty is not real progress.
The structural weaknesses of the state are becoming more visible. If priorities don’t change, these issues are likely to worsen rather than improve.
Utkarsh Mishra is a journalist based in Ranchi. He has worked with Aajeevika Bureau, an organisation working with migrant labour, and writes on labour, urban policy, law and climate. His work has appeared in Feminism in India, The India Forum, Countercurrents, Verdicto, and Zee News
Views expressed are the author’s own and don’t necessarily reflect those of Down To Earth