Globalization, Markets and Resource Management:An Empirical Case Study on Sustainability

The concept of sustainability has gained an enormous attention and concern all over the world, particularly in the wake of economic reforms and market economy. It has become the current topic of debate in academia, policy making and practitioners. Sustainability, at bottom refers to resource sustainability, and that too exhaustible natural resources. Accordingly, the present paper focuses on natural resources management with special reference to depletable and non-regenerative resources.Energy and coal being what they are to the Indian economy, assume greater significance in resource management. Hence, coal mining industry is taken as an empirical case study of sustainability of resource-base in the context of faster rates of development. The analysis and inferences can be extended to the whole of the extractive sector, may be with some modifications. The policy of cross subsidization seems to be one of the best policy instruments to achieve a sustainable mining sector in pace with the sustainable development. It is noticed that globalization can be made compatible with ever depleting resource base through exploration. The relative roles and contributions of exploration,extraction and conservation to the sustainable resource base need to change during different phases of development. Marketing may be insidious to resource base but not the market. On the whole, the paper tries to make the lofty ideal of sustainability into a reality.