Between Maoists and mines-- acres of cultivable land laid waste: due to mines of SAIL. -

Operation Saranda: from Maoists to Miners

0 Comments

A dried stream laden with iron ore in Dhobil village and 100 acres of cultivable land laid waste: consequence of Chiria mines owned by SAIL.
Photographs by: Sayantan Bera
Also read: Between Maoists and mines

Operation Saranda: from Maoists to Miners

0 Comments

A gateway to Saranda turns red due to iron ore dust. Spread over 800 sq km in Jharkhand’s West Singhbhum district, Saranda’s sal forests stand atop the largest untapped single deposit of iron ore in the country. Until now mining was limited to the periphery, but 19 new leases are in different stages of approval.
Photographs by: Sayantan Bera
Also read: Between Maoists and mines
 
Deep inside the Sal forests, the hills behind Kudliba village has been allotted to three companies for mining. The villages, inhabited by the Ho tribes will not be displaced, but the forests will disappear. Once a stronghold of Maoist insurgents, the Saranda forests, so claims the government, has been sanitized following operation Anaconda in August 2011.

The mandatory public hearing for the mining leases are often held 20-30 kms away from their villages, complain residents. In 2012, Jairam Ramesh argued for no private mining inside Saranda and said ‘more mining means more Maoism.’
 
Following the anti-Naxal drive, the central ministry of Rural Development (MoRD) announced a Rs 263 crore Saranda Action Plan in October 2011 to spruce up development for Ho tribals inside the forest. Jairam Ramesh, minister in charge of MoRD sees the action plan as a development model for other Maoist dominated areas.

Inside the dilapidated Tribal Research Museum in Ranchi, the state capital. Local activists complain the development plan has a clear mining interest. They are asking for implementation of constitutional rights guaranteed under the fifth schedule and progressive legislations like PESA whereby sale of tribal land without consent is deemed illegal.

Ushariya village inside Saranda, bordering a new mining lease area. For the 36,000 Ho tribals residing inside Saranda, and another 90,000 living on the periphery, the forests and its streams are the lifeline: they collect a range of minor forest produce (Sal leaves and seeds, Mahua, Kusum, Chironjee, Dhuna, Lac, Tasar, Kendu leaves); the perennial streams provide the fresh water for drinking and farming.

SAIL, till date was the only company mining inside Saranda. After it renewed and expanded its lease area in February 2011, SAIL spruced up its corporate social responsibility (CSR) package. Woolens were offered to these children as part of SAIL CSR. What use is of blankets, biscuits and clothes when our land is turning barren and zinda nalas (perennial streams) drying up? asked the local postmaster Bhimsen Gop.
 
Of the Rs 263 crore development package Rs 164 crore will be spent on building roads and construction of integrated development centers (IDCs). The remaining Rs 99 crore will be spent on housing for BPL families, watersheds, residential schools and freebies like cycles, solar lanterns and radios. While World Bank officials visited as a part of the team which drafted the package, the tribals were kept aside during planning and for future monitoring.
 
A school in Ushariya village bordering a new mining lease area. The guideline prepared by the MoRD on the Saranda action plan notes that ‘the tribal inhabitants have been victims of long years of official apathy and isolation from the development process due to Maoist’s presence.’ But activists, historians, local politicians and tribals say the region was free from insurgency till the year 2000. The area was a melting pot of parallel struggles, for tribal autonomy and government recognition of rights to forests- the monumental failure of which eased the entry of Maoists.
 
Jaunga Banda, part time worker at SAIL’s Chiria mines is uncertain of the impact of mining. ‘Will I not get my datun (a forest twig used as toothbrush) also?’ he asks before saying, ‘I hope they will leave some forest for our graves’. Burial is customary among Ho’s.
 
Among the Ho’s it is customary to give burials in a corner of the village under the shade of trees. In 1889 when the British uprooted Ho villages in Saraikela by declaring them as reserve forests, the Ho’s argued the Sasandiris (burial stones) are their land titles. Eventually they moved southwards to Saranda forests.
Photographs by: Sayantan Bera
 

In an around Saranda are doco areas- a local name for illegal raising of iron ore- from river beds, fields and forests. An un-estimated number of crusher units operate in the periphery of Saranda (in Jamda, Manoharpur, Noamundi and littered on the 140 km road running from Barbil in Jharkhand to Rourkella in Orissa) which procures iron ores and sells it to legal mines. ‘4 people can gather as much as 12 tonnes of ore within 3 hours. It is then trucked to a crusher unit; the villagers get about Rs 1000,’ tells Sushil Aind sitting on a pile of iron ore stacked inside Tontogera forest village, neighboring the hills cleared for mining by ArcelorMittal.
 
According to Indian Bureau of Mines’ 2010 report on mining leases and prospecting licenses, West Singhbhum is the most mined district in Jharkhand, and accounts for almost the entire share of iron ore mined in the state. Already 44 mining leases for iron ore is operational covering an area of 12,374 hectare. As of now most of the mining is concentrated around the periphery of the Saranda forests. The plan is to rip open the seven hundred hills of dense forests where sunlight cannot enter, to 19 new mining leases for the private sector, covering an additional 11,000 ha (approximately). Add to it the concrete roads, CRPF camps and ancillary developments for mining- there is little hope the forests and its perennial streams will survive the assault.