As India moves towards a low-carbon future, delivering a just transition in coal-dependent regions demands actionable, evidence-based pathways. This article aims to examine the gap between theory and on-ground realities, highlighting what is needed to make the transition fair and sustainable.
The Challenge of Moving Beyond Coal
Transitioning away from coal-based energy systems towards low-carbon sources is critical to address climate change concerns. However, this is a complex phenomenon given the deep entrenchment of coal in India’s socio-political and techno-economic landscape. A just transition approach has gained prominence in recent years, underpinned by normative tenets such as justice, equity, inclusivity, and sustainability in an energy transition process. Notwithstanding these normative elements, the need of the hour is to develop actionable frameworks and pathways based on empirical evidence to guide a fair and equitable transition away from coal and support communities in navigating livelihood disruptions.
Theoretical Underpinnings of Just Transition
Originating from labour justice movements and labour environmentalism in North America during the 1970s and 1980s, the concept of just transition has evolved and been shaped by diverse perspectives and interpretations. Initially, it focused on the rehabilitation of the fossil-fuel dependent workers and communities vulnerable to disruptions, but gradually the horizons of just transition expanded to include the broader scope of social justice, intergenerational equity, and regional economic diversification.
Currently, ‘the triumvirate of tenets’– procedural, distributive, and recognition justice–from the energy justice literature is shaping the discourse on just transition. These tenets of energy justice are inherently linked and mutually reinforcing. Distributional justice refers to the equitable allocation of the burdens and benefits in energy systems and primarily interrogates ‘who gains and who loses’. Procedural justice underscores fair and inclusive decision-making in energy governance through meaningful, non-discriminatory stakeholder participation. Recognition justice addresses the socio-cultural roots of inequity, ensuring sensitivity to diverse identities, values, knowledge systems, and experiences within energy discourse and policymaking.
Though the theoretical underpinnings have significantly shaped the normative boundaries of just transition by pitching ‘what ought to be’, the intersection of the energy transition and the political economy of coal in India demands a pragmatic, empirical, actionable, and evidence-based strategy grounded in ‘what is’ to navigate a successful, fair, and just transition.
Actionable Pathways
Regional economic diversification constitutes a critical actionable pathway for achieving a just transition in India’s coal mining regions. Such diversification aims to mitigate socio-economic disruptions arising from the gradual phase-down of coal. This process involves developing alternative sectors such as renewable energy, agro-based industries, sustainable tourism, and skill-intensive manufacturing to create new employment opportunities and broaden the economic base. In the Indian context, the coal districts exhibit limited industrial heterogeneity, which requires a context-specific approach integrating local governance, community participation, and public-private partnership.
For instance, ground realities in the coal mining regions of Betul district in Madhya Pradesh reveal the lack of alternative industries to absorb the workforce employed in coal-based activities in the event of mine decommissioning. The absence of robust secondary and tertiary sectors constrains livelihood resilience, and inadequate investment in skill development and infrastructure further impedes the district’s capacity to transition toward sustainable industries. Even if alternative industries were to be established, their long-term viability remains constrained by the absence of robust market linkages and sustained local demand. The region’s economic geography, characterized by limited intra-regional connectivity of villages and blocks, underdeveloped infrastructure, and a low level of industrial clustering, restricts the growth of non-coal sectors. Consequently, new enterprises often struggle to access wider markets or integrate into regional value chains, undermining their capacity to generate stable employment and income.
Various initiatives and enterprises promoted under the National Rural Livelihood Mission (NRLM) and State Rural Livelihood Mission (SRLM) to empower self-help groups and strengthen local entrepreneurship have struggled to generate stable and sustainable incomes. Their limited success is largely attributed to inadequate market linkages, insufficient value-chain integration, and weak access to demand-driven markets, which have hindered the scalability and long-term viability of such rural enterprises.
This structural limitation highlights that a just transition in Betul and other coal regions cannot rely solely on the creation of new industries; it must also be underpinned by deliberate efforts to develop market ecosystems, strengthen regional infrastructure, and integrate local economies into broader supply networks. Without such enabling conditions, the diversification agenda risks remaining a nominal exercise rather than a transformative pathway for sustainable development. Merely focusing on the techno-economic dimensions while ignoring the social aspects of an energy transition process is unlikely to yield sustainable systems. While technological shifts can be engineered and implemented with relative ease, the transformation of societal structures, practices, and values that accompany these transitions presents a far more intricate and enduring challenge.
Therefore, a just transition will rely on aligning technological ambition with social preparedness, ensuring that communities are not merely passive recipients but active participants in shaping a sustainable future.