DU students transform mining land into green belt

NEW DELHI: In Purnapani, a small village 40 km off Rourkela, a vast barren stretch of land previously filled with mining waste is now layered by a mosaic of green grass, bamboo plantation and orchards, thanks to the efforts of a Delhi University environment management team.

No one had ever imagined that a piece of land covered with dumps could be of some productive use until Delhi University's Professor CR Babu and his team gave Purnapani's limestone mine the much needed Midas touch by reviving its lost ecological productivity.

The 2,500 acres of land in Purnapani limestone quarry, about 40 kilometres from Rourkela until last year was a barren stretch with piles of waste produced by mining activities is now layered by mosaic of green grass, bamboo plantation and
orchards.

"It is first of its kind of multi-dimensional sustainable development programme under taken together by the Delhi University's Centre for Environmental Management of Degraded Ecosystems (CEMDE) and the Steel Authority of India Limited
(SAIL) where efforts were made to restore ecological value of land that is no longer used for mining, Prof Babu said.

"This way the abandoned land would be utilized for societal benefit," he says.

He says the belief that every land possesses some ecological value helped his team obtain financial aid of roughly around Rs1 crore from SAIL and rest Rs2 crore came the Department of Biotechnology of the University.

The team which started work in December 2005 included experts like a geologist, molecular biologist, research economist and an ecologist.

"Our aim was to restore fertility of the land that had been dug up to about 50 to 80 metres deep. It was indeed a challenging job. We used different ecological restoration technologies to enrich he soil," says Babu who is concerned about the thousands of hectares of land that are degraded by mining alone.

"The earth is dying a gradual death. Activities like mining and construction can not be stopped altogether, but efforts can be made to make prudent use of land," he says.

He explains that mining yields approximately one per cent of ore and the remaining is usually wasted adding both the soil cover and underground water are lost when the land is dug up at 200 feet.

"Areas like Raniganj became vulnerable to subsidence due to underground mining," the professor says.

The latest trend of SEZs and habitat conversions are responsible of robbing the land of its fertility and leading to a gradual death of the eco system.

"What we see today, that people buy plots for land and leave them open without any vegetation. The soil slowly get blown off and so do the nutrients," explains the professor.

Since, in Purnapani the focus was to make the land beneficial for the local people living around in the area, the team conducted a socio-economic survey and decided to use different patches of land for various purposes.

"The most important thing was to prepare the soil. Grass has the unique quality of 'habitat processing,' it is capable of producing a large amount of biomass and traps moisture for a longer period, so we began with growing about 15 species of grass and later we planted five local, high-yielding species of bamboo that have grown to a height of 15 feet with in a span of a year," says Babu.

"Later, 15 species fruit bearing trees , including litchi, mangoes, lemon, amla, pomegranate and jack-fruit were sown," Deputy General Manager , Purnapani quarry (SAIL) SM Patnaik said.

Patnaik said the tribal families were earlier non-cooperative, they were skeptical about the project. "They destroyed the fencing and would send in animals, but gradually they realized these efforts would benefit them."

"This attempt is an eye-opener for them. There is a remarkable change in their attitude and they are very enthusiastic about the fish that grow in the small pond that was created as a part of the restoration project. We had introduced some fishlings in the beginning, the pond is now teeming with fish and planktons," Patnaik adds.

He says they had plantations in other sites as well, but Purnapani was the first project where specialised weather station had been set-up to measure about nine atmospheric elements such as temperature and humidity.

But the project aims much higher than just turning the unused land in to a green cover. The team is working on ways to make the available water fit for domestic use for round 10,000 families living in Purnapani and the four villages close to the mine.

What now the team is trying for is a one time grant of around Rs5 crore to initiate a micro-credit system for the locals so that they can manage their own water pump and pipeline.

"If that works, this will transform the land into gold," he says.