Ore town gathers rust

China’s seemingly insatiable demand for iron ore led to a mining boom in Bellary six years ago. Then the Olympics drew to an end, and so did the economic boom years. Now demand has dried up and an entire workforce that came up around mining is in limbo. DNA visits Bellary to see the effects of this enormous fly-by-night operation.

Conversations in Bellary tend to veer towards mining — the single activity that made it ‘notorious’ and wealthy overnight. ‘Digging’ is a commonly used English word in the villages too. There is always talk of the past, the glory years, of packed restaurants and parking lots, of traffic choking the city, of mine owners’ clout in the Vidhana Soudha, of small entrepreneurs, farmers, and landlords raking in the moolah. Around seven years ago, when China began shopping for the ore from the heartlands of Karnataka at exorbitant prices, Bellary fell all over itself to satiate the country’s appetite. As the curtains came down on the Olympics in China, Bellary’s dream run to quick money also fizzled out, leaving behind a trail of woes. A Lokayukta report last year on ‘illegal mining’ in the area only expedited the rapidly declining industry’s downfall.

The boom, that lasted 6-7 years, coursed through the mineral-rich district like a hurricane, tearing apart farmlands, flattening small entrepreneurs under burdensome loans, and filling the coffers of miners who were already flying high in choppers that their mines paid for. Now, the landscape is a dreary reminder of the ‘prosperity’ it had once seen. Desolate dhabas, petrol pumps, idling trucks and daily wagers, and loan defaulters speak of the time when fortune smiled on everyone.

“I used to earn Rs500-600 per day. Now, only Rs300,” says Abdul Kareem, 42, owner of a tiny shop in Sandur taluk. This father of five is managing to make ends meet just as friend and truck driver B Basha is. The quality of life has dropped, he says, since his incentives were slashed after the prices for iron ore fell in the global market. Prices went up as high as $145 per tonne and dropped to less than $50 per tonne. “Earlier, we bought rice that cost Rs25. Now, we eat rice that costs Rs18. No more weekly non-veg meals,” he says. Basha makes Rs5,000 a month now, Rs3,000 less than what he earned ferrying employees of steel plants. That’s barely enough to provide for his family of eight.

As the mining business slowed down, the rogue lorries that ‘terrorised’ traffic in the badlands of Bellary lost speed too. Thousands of vehicles which once earned as much as Rs1,000 for transporting a single load of ore for a few kilometres were no longer in demand. Their owners who had borrowed heavily to invest in them were at a loss; so were the financiers who had jumped into the fray, offering 100 per cent funding. “Almost every small-time truck owner is defaulting on the installments. Hundreds of trucks have been seized,” says B Kenchappa of the Lorry Owners’ Association.

“People have given up government jobs, good, stable careers to get into mining. Now they have nothing left. Some have even sold their TV sets,” says BA, BEd graduate Kenchappa, wishing he had taken up teaching as his profession. Lorry owners got the bad end of the deal, what with drivers competing with each other to make more trips and wrecking the vehicles while at it. The plight of lorry owners has inspired the joke, Vairigondu lorry kodisu (Help your foe get a lorry.)

While not many are laughing, villagers here are relieved that the monster 10, 12 and 14-wheelers are out of work. “One still can’t cross roads. Ride a two-wheeler here at your own peril,” says E Devi, a resident of Sandur. This, when the mining frenzy is on the ebb. “We fear sending children to school on these roads. There’s no value for human life. When the miners are raking in crores, what’s a lakh or two to hush up an accident?” she says.

The disparity is most cruel in the villages that dot the district’s rugged terrain. Bellary has got little in return for the resources of the land that earned thousands of crores for the State. “When the blasts happen, we can feel the tremors in our houses. Some old houses have collapsed. We live in fear,” says an aged resident of Thoranagal village. Even as mine owners enjoy plush lifestyles in cities far away, the residents rough it out without schools, hospitals or even drinking water which mining muddies.

Nationalisation the answer?
The government should step in to clean up the mess that Bellary’s mining industry is, says Prof Ganti. “It should be scientific, taking into account the workers’ interests. Strengthen infrastructure for the locals,” she says. Nationalisation is no solution at all, miners and traders say. “About 40,000 hectares has already been nationalised. But it contributes only 5 million tonnes of the total output of the district. That means 67% of the mining area has been nationalised but it contributes only 11% of the material produced annually. About five lakh people’s livelihoods depend on it. The nationalised mines are mostly mechanised,” says Arvind Narayanswamy of Savaa Minerals, a trading company. However, the government has to act with urgency. There’s a market ready to be exploited, reserves waiting to be explored, he says. “China’s iron ore consumption grew from 34 million tonnes in the ‘90s to 500 million tonnes while India’s consumption has touched only 70 million tonnes which is easily being met by the mines in the country,” Gaviappa says. Allowing the industry to flourish is crucial to India’s future in the global market; iron forms its crux. The government has to facilitate mining with roads, water, land and legislation, he stresses.

Scarred forever?
Daily wage workers came in droves from everywhere to join in the digging mania. The wages were high compared to the standards prevailing in Gulbarga, Raichur, Koppal, Bagalkot and other places around. Their well-being, if at all, was short-lived. About 30,000-40,000 people reportedly vacated the place when digging was outlawed and the district task force for mining began to raid farm lands. “They left with nothing but disease,” says Prof Mallika Ganti of the Kannada department of PG centre, Sandur. The farm lands here are ailing too, blistered with gaping holes dug open for pebbles. “It will cost the farmers twice the profits they made to fix their lands. With the top soil gone, farming might be impossible,” says J Srinivas Murthy, assistant conservator of forests, Bellary.

That’s not so, dismisses mine owner HR Gaviappa, ex-MLA of Hospet, who mines in about 200 acres here. “The land becomes more fertile once the iron pebbles are removed,” he says. Forest lands are definitely in harm’s way, says Murthy. “Bellary’s total forest area is 1,27,000 acres; 5,500 hectares has been leased for mining. We’ve found that about 1,100 hectares have been encroached upon,” he says. Only a massive movement of the scale of Ganga cleaning or Dehradun afforestation can undo the damage, he says.