Bellary's slow and painful struggle to recovery

We were halfway up the mountain at the extraction site of Tiffin’s Barytes, amid heaps and heaps of iron ore. “The extraction from mines in Bellary is of excellent quality, containing between 58 and 64 percent iron,” said PS Sreedhar, deputy general manager at Tiffin’s Barytes. The mine located about 35 km from Bellary town is one of the five mines operating in Bellary district since December. Eighteen mines were allowed by the Supreme Court to resume operations in September 2012 because they fell in Category ‘A’ list of mines that had committed almost no deviations.

The Karnataka government had banned export of iron ore in July 2010 and a year later, the Supreme Court banned mining in Bellary district. While we were at the mine on 18 April, came news that the apex court had ordered the cancellation of 49 mining leases. These companies had flouted rules with impunity, especially the Forest Conservation Act of 1980 and the court was clearly sending a message across by deciding to do away with such black sheep.

But the court’s decision to give the green signal to 27 mines in Category ‘A’ and 63 in category ‘B’ (minor deviations) to resume operations after doing reclamation and rehabilitation work and paying penalty (in case of Category B) has brought much cheer to both the mine owners and the workers in Bellary. At the height of the boom period between 2003 and 2010, Bellary’s mines provided employment to some 1.5 lakh people. After the bubble burst, in the last couple of years, buses out of Bellary bound for Bangalore and Hyderabad have seen the same workers as passengers. Bellary that acted as a magnet for those seeking employment in the iron ore mines was being shunned like the plague.

During the first decade of this century, Bellary contributed between 15 to 20 percent of India’s iron ore production every year. But rampant illegal mining was changing the face of Bellary for the worse.

Three years ago, if you stepped into Bellary, the smell of mineral dust that constantly hung over the town, would be revolting. Citizens complained of high incidence of lung infections, cancer and heart ailments. Rainwater that flows down the hills picked up mining waste. It had negatively impacted the total capacity of the Tungabhadra reservoir reducing it by more than 30 percent due to siltation. Many species of wildlife are no longer seen in the diminished forest areas.

The then chief minister BS Yeddyurappa, who owed his majority in the Vidhana Soudha to the ill-gotten money from illegal mining, admitted that over 30 million tonnes of iron ore (worth Rs 7,500 crore at conservative cost) had been illegally exported from Karnataka between April 2003 and March 2010.

“Those days will never come back again,” says K Dadapeer, a lorry owner shaking his head at the Lorry terminal on the outskirts of Bellary town. “It was like a dream. A very good dream, till one day it became a nightmare.” Chand Pasha, a driver says, “We all knew it won’t last forever but we did not expect that it would shut down completely.’’

At the height of the boom, more than 10,000 trucks zoomed in and out of the mines everyday to ports as far away as Visakhapatnam, Krishnapatnam, Mangalore, Chennai, Kakinada and Goa. A lorry owner who would normally make Rs 400 for a 40 km trip to carry 16 tonnes of iron ore in his lorry would be persuaded to carry 30 tonnes. In return, he would make Rs 5,400 for the same trip. Nearly Rs 2,000 would be the bribe amount at different checkposts while the lorry owner and his driver would get to pocket the rest. In the Republic of Bellary, just about anyone and everyone who co-opted himself into the corrupt system, flourished.

Janardhana Reddy himself gained from his connections with the late YS Rajasekhara Reddy across the border. The Andhra Pradesh government is accused of looking the other way even as Janardhana Reddy, who had license to mine in the state, altered the Karnataka-AP border to suit his interests. Many in Bellary allege that Janardhana Reddy would also forcibly take a stake in different mining companies in Bellary. In return, he ensured they faced no hurdles in violating the law of the land as they wished. It was almost like a minister in the government taking ‘protection money’ for causing a loss to the same government’s exchequer, they claim.

The last couple of years have not been good for Bellary’s economy. Allied sectors like the hospitality business and sale of white goods have suffered with fewer people dropping into Bellary. But they also realise that it was an artificial boom period and Bellary suffered for riding the tiger. In the end, when it was forced to get off, the bite hurt.

Add to that the notoriety the town acquired. For long, it was the denim capital of south India but now it is known far and wide only for its brush with illegal mining.

The workers know that the new working environment won’t be the same. With the Supreme Court tightening the screws, mine owners will no longer have the courage to flout rules.

The court has imposed a ceiling on the total production of iron ore at 30 million tonnes in a year and the sale of the ore will be carried by a monitoring committee. A specified percentage of sales (10 percent in Category A mines and 15 percent in Category B mines) will be retained by the committee to go into a special purpose vehicle to implement a comprehensive environment management plan for the mining affected zones.

This would be like applying some balm over Bellary’s wounds.