Coal delivery via bicycle, sometimes with a minivan assist, is apparently a thing in the state of Jharkhand, which has the highest coal production in India.
The state-owned coal monopoly doesn’t meet the needs of industry in India, so illegal mining is rampant, along with selling coal on the blackmarket. Unsafe working conditions were cited as one of the reasons to nationalize India’s coal mines beginning in the early 1970s, but children as young as seven years old work in completely unregulated illegal mines just like Indiana Jones witnessed when he visited the Temple of Doom.
Strong men with bikes then deliver the coal for light industry and residential use.
Elsewhere in India, people take to the road on their bicycles as even-odd motor vehicle restrictions remain in place after the Delhi high court affirmed the government’s attempts to curb automotive emissions.
Rickshaws travel along a road shrouded in smog in New Delhi, India, on Monday, Jan. 11, 2016. A 2-judge Delhi High Court panel headed by Chief Justice G. Rohini allowed the odd-even traffic restrictions to continue. The measure by Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal is the most concerted effort by the government yet to reduce the number of exhaust-belching automobiles in the world’s most polluted metropolitan area as discontent among the city’s 16.8 million residents grows.