Currently India's annual consumption of asbestos is about 100,000 metric tonnes, one fifth of which is mined in India. Andhra Pradesh, Rajasthan and Bihar are major asbestos mining belt of India with 20,000 tonnes being mined from these three states yearly. 

India is is the ninth leading producer of in the world and the sixth largest user of asbestos. There are 13 large-scale and 673 small- scale asbestos operations in India. Raw asbestos worth Rs 40 to 50 crores is imported annually.

The asbestos industry gives employs 6000 workers and indirectly supports another 100,000. Working conditions in the asbestos mines and factories are in a deplorable state and this has been shown by the studies conducted by NIOH and Consumer Education Research Centre, Ahmedabad. 

On 18 August 2003, in the Rajya Sabha home, the Union Minister of Health and Family Welfare and Parliamentary Affairs, Mrs Sushma Swaraj, had said, "Studies by the National Institute of Occupational Health (NIOH), Ahmedabad, have shown that long-term exposure to any type of asbestos can lead to development of asbestosis, lung cancer and mesothelioma".

The International Labour Organisation has taken the incidence of asbestos-related cancer in Finland and extrapolated it to the world worker population, to produce an estimate that at least 100,000 and maybe as many as 140,000 workers die each year from asbestos exposures resulting in cancer [ILO, 2003]. When estimates from this and other studies are extrapolated to include the world population, it has been projected that the asbestos cancer epidemic will cause 5-10 million deaths, past and present

At present over thirty-six countries have banned use of asbestos