The Hindu Business Line : Predatory mining ruining Girijans, says report

Mr E.A.S Sarma (right), former Power Secretary and convener of the Forum for Better Visakha, and Mr Chandra Bhushan, Associate Director of the Centre for Science and Environment, after releasing the sixth State of India’s Environment report on mining in Visakhapatnam.

Our Bureau

Visakhapatnam, April 8 Predatory mining is ruining the lives of Girijans living in the hilly tracts of the country, especially the mineral-rich Orissa, Jharkhand, and Chhattisgarh, and the situation is grim, according to the sixth report of the New Delhi-based Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) on the state of mining in the country.

The report – titled “Rich lands, poor people” – was released here by the former Power Secretary and convener of the Forum for better Visakha, Mr E.A.S Sarma. The release here assumes significance as currently an agitation is going on against the proposal of the Andhra Pradesh Government to undertake bauxite mining in the agency (tribal) tracts of Visakhapatnam district to provide the raw material to the alumina refineries to be set up the Jindal group and the UAE-based Ras-Al-Khima group.

Mr Sarma said the report was informative and timely, and it brought into focus some of the ugly facts relating to mining. He said that in the report it was stated that almost half of the 50 mineral-producing districts in the country were tribal and mining had displaced 2.6 million people between 1950 and 1991, 52 per cent of them being Girijans. The fact that not even 25 per cent of them had been rehabilitated should stir the conscience of the nation, he said.

The Associate Director of the CSE, Mr Chandra Bhushan, spoke at length about the depredation wrought by mining in Orissa, Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand.

“Mining is being promoted in the country for the wrong reason – employment. All State governments, including Andhra Pradesh, justify mining on the ground that the sector provides jobs, but that is false. The mining industry in India employs just 5.6 per cent of the people and the number is going down,” he said. The royalties on the mines were being cornered by the State governments and not the local bodies, he alleged and argued that the situation would have to change.

Situation in AP

Mr Rebbapragada Ravi, Executive Director of Samata, an NGO fighting for the cause of tribals, and the lead author of the report said the State accounted for 96 per cent of barytes in the country, 40 per cent of the lime stone and 30 per cent of the bauxite. “It is a heavily mined state and it accounts for 16 per cent of the mines in the country,” he added.

He said forests in the State had suffered due to mining and in 25 years (between 1980 and 2005) 13,000 hectares of forest land had been diverted in the State for mining. This was the third largest such diversion, he said, after Orissa and Chhattisgarh.

Condemning the latest attempt of the State Government to undertake bauxite mining in the eastern ghats of Visakhapatnam district, he said it would prove ruinous to the Girijans in the hills and the people in the plains as well. “Water bodies, such as rivulets and hill streams, will be polluted and dried up. It will cause a major upheaval in the agency area,” he said and urged the State Government to give up the “ill-conceived move.”

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