No hospital in 8-km range of ‘New Jharia’

Belgaria- New Jharia, 8 kms from Jharia, 7 kms Dhanbad  
2600 families live here sans electricity sans water supply 

2600 hundred families have been shifted to 1500 quarters in Belgaria, 22 kilometers from Jharia town, a new colony surrounded by jungles with no basic amenities within commutable range.

There is no hospital or medical care, no school, no shops, and, worst of all, no jobs at all. The people of Belgaria have to travel more than 8 kilometers to reach Dhanbad or come back to Jharia to avail the nearest hospital.


Leela, an elderly women living in the new Jharia for a year now said, “Just a month ago a lady died while being taken to Dhanbad in labor pain. We could not take her to hospital on time even booking a vehicle with all money we had.”

“To add to the woes the roads that lead to Dhanbad or Jharia is through jungles. No proper road has been made since the township has been rehabilitated.” retorted Mohan, another resident of Belgaria.

Rajan, a student who has to travel to Jharia everyday to attend his college said, “There is no water or electricity in the area. The street lights are all defunct. The entire area is engulfed in darkness after sunset.”

The residents who are facing immediate evacuation are opposed to moving to Belgaria, where they have been provided accommodation of 10 by 9 feet. The residents wonder how a family of five to six members can adjust and sleep in such a small area.

"There is no water and electricity; this is an attempt to make us homeless," said Madan Lal Khanna, Secretary of the Jharia Coalfield Bachao Samiti (JCBS), “besides the most of the people have yet received the shifting allowance of Rs 10,000. Moreover since last three months we are paying a sum of Rs 250 each month for water which is supposed to be free for us and we have no receipt of the same.”

Families living in Gwalapati, Lujpit, Rajput Bustee, Bokapahari and Modivita localities in Jharia are to have been shifted to Belgaria within 100 days in mid-October last year where Bharat Coking Coal Limited (BCCL) and Jharia Rehabilitation Development Authority (JRDA) has constructed 3,400 flats of 203 square feet each under a pilot project.

Under the Jharia rehabilitation plan, about 80,000 families are to be evacuated and rehabilitated. Instead of doing something against the fires, one of the biggest resettlement plans worldwide is to be carried out, Jharia Action Plan (JAP). Central and Jharkhand government has sanctioned more than Rs 9 crore for rehabilitation and dousing of the underground mine fire.

According to BCCL sources, more than 68,000 families will be shifted from the fire zone area of Jharia. According to sources, Rs.4,500 crore will be spent on rehabilitation and Rs.2,400 crore on dousing the underground fire to save billions of tonnes of quality coal for BCCL.

Four satellite townships are coming up to house displaced families, two in Baliapur circle and one each in Topchanchi and Baghmara. This apart, the BCCL is again carrying out a survey of families of employees living in the fire-ravaged areas. Coal India Limited Board has approved construction of 16,000 quarters.

CMD of BCCL T.K. Lahiri told that with the approval of the Rs 9,657-crore master plan by both the Centre and State governments and subsequent division of responsibilities between JRDA and BCCL, there remains little confusion.

“The rehabilitation work undertaken by JRDA is progressing at a smooth pace. While JRDA is responsible for rehabilitation of non-BCCL families, the coal company is taking care of its employees.” Lahiri said.

JRDA Superintending Engineer Narendra Kumar said, “Remaining people of most endangered areas, including Bokapahari, Kurkurtopa and PB area, would get their letters by of the year. Though 267 non-BCCL families have been given quarters in Belgaria, they refused to shift as there was no water and power supply. We have solved the problem now,”

However,Lahiri said shifting families of their employees would be carried out in phases. “The entire process of relocation of some 3,000 BCCL families will be completed in three to four years,” he said.

• this article has been published in the pioneer in August 2011

Life expectancy of miners below 40 - Jharia

As Jharia burns, the people who have chosen to make this place their home brave the fire and fumes to somehow make a living and feed themselves two square meals a day. Hardly any of the workers in the open cast mines wear any protective gear, no masks and no boots. Most end up with a film of soot covering their lungs and by the time pneumoconiosis is detected, it is too late to do anything.

Gayatri Devi, an illegal coal collector, is 40 and lives in a one-room house in one of Jharia's active fire zones called Bokapahadi. The floor of her house has a huge crack, fumes from which fill the house. "I have lived here for 40 years," Gayatri tells.

"Last year, the floor cracked and since then my house is on fire. When we walk barefoot our feet burn. At night, my children feel suffocated on the pungent fumes. Eight of us sleep in this room,” adds Gayatri Devi.

Muzaffar Hussain is 32 years old and works with BCCL, the state mining company that runs Jharia's mining fields. His house, which shelters a family of ten, is practically a gas chamber with noxious gas hissing from cracks in the floor. His wife has been suffering from continuous nausea and breathing problems, and half of Muzaffar's monthly salary goes into her treatment. Like many others who work for BCCL, he hasn't received the health card that assures subsidized treatment at the hospital.

Huge open cast and underground mines are threatening the health and homes of thousands. Villages or colliery slums like Bokapahadi, Kujama, Ghanudih, Baghdighi, Jairampur, are mining areas in and around Jharia where hundreds of families live above the fire. The land beneath their feet is hot and everywhere smoke and sulphurous gases escape from thousands of fissures and cracks.

Residents of the collieries are affected by air and water pollution borne diseases that leads to respiratory and abdominal problems. RP Gupta doctor of the BCCL run hospital at Ghanudih describes, “Villagers are suffering from a battery of lung diseases caused by air pollution. Many of them are not even aware of that they are sick. People have become used to nose bleeding or breathing trouble.”

Tata Steel Rural Development Society, working for residents of the coal belt for years has observed that residents of the coal belt live a short live due to lung disorders. A social worker associated with TSRDS stated, “Most of the diseased people are not treated because they themselves are not aware of the ailments. This has resulted into shortening of life span of the locals.”

BCCL managing director T K Lahiri says, “Compensation is offered to anyone who qualifies for it under the company's guidelines. We have been trying best for the past two decades to control these fires, but there is no permanent solution. The rehabilitation of the workers to new Jharia is in process. ”

• this article has been published in the pioneer in August 2011

A Singur is seething in Nagri..!!

Photograph by Nayan Shaurya

The farming village in Kanke block, 15km from state capital Ranchi, is rapidly reaching flashpoint with residents rising in revolt against the government’s proposed education hub on 218 acres of riyati land.Earlier this year, 200-odd villagers, under the banner of Bandhu Tirkey-led People’s Front upped their ante by halting construction of the boundary wall of Indian Institute of Information Technology (IIIT), one of the three premier cradles expected to call Nagri their campus address.
Armed with spades, ploughs and other agricultural tools, the villagers chased away Kanke circle officer Sanjay Kumar who was supervising work and then started preparing their land for a kharif harvest, as 50-odd Rapid Action Force (RAF) personnel had to wait and watch.

“Mera khet mujhse koi nahi cheen sakta. Yeh khet meri pehchaan hai jo mere purkhon ki nishani hai.,” said 45-year-old Shanti Toppo, ploughing her plot. Farmer Mantu Oraon added, “Land in Nagri has always been an agricultural goldmine. For three generations, we have harvested gold (paddy) and that is what we like. After two spells of drought, we are hopeful of a bumper yield this time. How can we just give our ancestral land away?”

The state government has planned three prominent projects in Nagri — a 76-acre campus for IIM-Ranchi, a 67-acre address for National University for Study and Research in Law (NSURL) and 75-acre premises for IIIT.

The district administration says that villagers no longer own the land for which they had been “duly compensated” in 1957-58, when acres were acquired for a Birsa Agriculture University seed farm, villagers refuse to buy the claim.
“Who says so? Where is the proof? No one has acquired any land. This is our property and we will either kill or die for it,” an agitated Oraon said, adding that the government could not grab their “zameen aur jivika (land and livelihood)” just like that.
“If we don’t have land, we won’t have money to live. What good will universities do to our starving families then? And if the government wants land, it should compensate us at today’s price and give us farmland elsewhere,” he said.

Ever since the state zeroed in on Nagri as its education hub address, protests have been routine. In the recent past, a high court intervention was required to raise the boundary wall of the other two proposed cradles amid soaring tension between villagers and local administration.

Arun Pradhan, the secretary of People’s Front, in 1957-58, the government had offered compensation to 153 riyati households under the Land Acquisition Act of 1894, but only 25 accepted it. “The others still pay lagaan (land tax) and have receipts too. Moreover, there is a rule that no work can be carried out on village acres without the consent of the gram sabha. We will sacrifice our lives if the government uses muscle power, but won’t let injustice happen farming would continue and warned of intensified agitation in coming days,” he added.

The land problem in Singur, the Bengal village where Tata Motors had wanted to set up a manufacturing unit, was a turning point in the political fortunes of the prodigious Left Front government.

Only time will tell whether Nagri will be the BJP-led administration’s undoing in Jharkhand.
Will the three underpinning campuses see the light of day?

Last Hope

One night when all my hostel mates were either sleeping or studying for the final examinations.. I was awake past mid night and wrote this. I relate to this even today, when I am no long a teenager... 

Through the densest fog and the darkest  night,

there seemed a light..

a misty dream lost long ago

brought back itself.. a hope, a life or just a shadow?

The dreams called for it was a hope,

the night screamed it was a shadow!

And life cried..

for its last hope, the weakest shadow

the dream that was lost long ago.

2 Captains?? Isn’t easy!!

Roll call. . . All the independent women please stand up, hmm..well… marriages would be easier if the women were not independent!!!

A certain comment by female on a picture uploaded on Facebook provoked me to write this, well yes provoked I must say! A snap of a friend’s ‘Sindur Daan’ … a shy bride and an intense groom, the picture brought a smile on my face. And then there was this comment – ‘this is the best moment in a gals life’… well I couldn't just grimaced and let it go, I had to write this.

With most of my friends getting married this year, I have noticed one thing common with all the marriage -- the idiosyncratic change in their FB status!! From ‘it was fun with friends and pizza’ or ‘what a movie’ to ‘cooked food for hubby dear’ and ‘ its Monday hubby back to office L’ . And the love for your husband is, supposedly, even more when the FB profile unites ‘Mr and Mrs X’ and more so when suddenly there are no individual snap of yours to put up as profile pictures.

What I fail to understand is why educated, intelligent, modern (well, atleast so called) working girls go almost drooling over their husbands! Why can’t they simply keep their husband and marriage as a part of their life and have a life of their own as well? How can they choose to be so dependent so much so that they seize to exist?

We’ve all heard, or perhaps experienced a version of this story: man and woman meet, they fall in love, date for a while, and move in together. They frame photos, arrange them on the walls, pick out furniture, make a nest. Sweet enough!  But enough to fulfill the dreams of a woman?

Let’s count for the heck of it how many happy moment I had in my life.. my first salary, my successful treks, meeting my close friends after years, going back home each vacation , yet the happiest will be when I am sure that I made myself  what I aspired to be -- professionally and personally.

Now, before you jump all over me, I am a not a feminist and neither am I against marriage. I would be as happy to be married as marriages can make someone happy (well..yeah..honestly). But I disagree with that role-based, androcentric approach to marriage.

 I don't know how many independent women stay married or get married without a hassle. What I think is that marriage would be easier if women were not independent; just caretakers of males needs in marriage with no real lives of their own. Let’s just say to put it modern day meaning (in world of FB and twitter) best and most loving wives are those who tweet ‘cooked rajma chawal today..his fav’  or gets a joint FB account with her hubby dear!

My question is: Does a woman hinder her chances of marriage by doing something or demanding that she loves to? Why are some women not just ‘wife material’? Just wondering how many guys would be actually intrigued by a woman when she has a job, a car, a home, a social circle, takes her own decision and is self-assured. Well guess there are two ways – be a wife who ‘is allowed’ to work have her own life (that means go shopping or a girls day out) provided she cooks and babysits her husband or date but with dignity.

Life or is it..

There are many roads I have travelled since then.. interesting, tempting, risky and boring. I have given myself every chance to be happy and to live life! I have grabbed every piece of life that has come my way. Yet.. time tends to take me back in days and memories.. where I had left a piece of Me!  

Too bad people don’t fall in love at the same pace, at the same time, for the same reasons, and it’s too bad that those emotions don’t move simultaneously. But each bit of madness moved at its own pace, one not dependent on the pace of anyone else. It wasn’t like tandem skydiving, where you were connected as you fell, where you were forced to fall at the same rate and use the same parachute. Falling in love is a solo act. You know that, just learn the hard way. You just jump and hope that your parachute will open. Sometimes, you look up and realize that you were falling by yourself, the object of your desire still on the plane, not interested in jumping and watching you descend into that scary place alone. And then you feel you are waiting for something that is not going to happen…

It hurts to know that one has to start all over again or may be its no more a start or ending. It’s only a journey now, directionless and reckless. It hurts to look back and yet it is the past that looks most beautiful. Well, sometimes you just need to step outside, get some fresh air and remind yourself who want to be and who you really are.

If I have learnt anything, it is that life forms no logical patterns. It is haphazard and full of beauties which I try to catch as they fly by. For who knows whether any of them will return. But as I pass by it’s like coming back to the room I left my fond memories and that I haven’t seen in long time, where I still try to put missing pieces of Me together.

Innocence

These lines I wrote..probably in one of those moments when I was either emotionally confused or confusedly emotional. A girl was growing up from her early teenage..

A white soul, a pure heart

A gust of spring wind..

many colors did bring,

A white soul, a heavy heart

Falling snow..

the winter did bring..

A white soul, a grave heart..

in scorching rays did shine..

Again Spring..

a gust of wind,hues of colors,

The white soul still smiling

And..

Innocence whispered choked and finally.. cried.

Jusss A ranDom ThouGhT

I've multiple personalities within me ranging from being dumb to intelligent to emotional to rational to funny to intense and none of it suffers from any disorder!!

Midnight - Thomas Wood

Unfathomable Night! how dost thou sweep

Over the flooded earth, and darkly hide

The mighty city under thy full tide;

Making a silent palace for old Sleep,

Like his own temple under the hush'd deep,

Where all the busy day he doth abide,

And forth at the late dark, outspreadeth wide

His dusky wings, whence the cold waters sweep!

How peacefully the living millions lie!

Lull'd unto death beneath his poppy spells;

There is no breath,no living stir,no cry

No tread of foot,no song no music,call

Only the sound of melancholy bells..

The voice of Time,survivor of them all!

AN OLIVE BRANCH FULL OF THORNS

Jharkhand is one of the richest areas in the whole country, rich in minerals deposit and forests.

Coal alone contributes about 92- 93 per cent to the total revenues from mining received by the Jharkhand government. Infact Jharkhand receives the maximum mining royalty among the coal producing states of India.

Since its formation, the Jharkhand government has been laying the red carpet for industrial investment by offering sops. Jharkhand State Mineral Development Corporation Ltd (JSMDC) and four major Companies of Coal India Ltd namely Central Coalfields Limited, Bharat Coking Coal Ltd., Eastern Coalfields Limited and Central Mine Planning & Design Institute Ltd. are contributing to the production of coal. Other entrepreneurs like Tata Steel, Tenughat Vidyut Nigam Ltd. and Damodar Valley Corporation also have captive mines in the State.

But as one traverses down the mining lanes of Jharkhand, ground level reality of the industry that is the integral part of the state’s economy tells a tale of apathy, negligence, gross corruption, lack of understanding and political will. One is confronted by the poor and dejected community, eking out a living on the fringes of a mine that employees local residents. Their families live in grotty hovels and shabby quarters in and around the mining areas.

This is trickle down economics at work, honoring those who have been forced to sacrifice their land in the name of growth.

Jharkhand is a rich state of poor people. It has concentration of some of country's highly industrialized cities like Jamshedpur, Bokaro and Dhanbad. Despite the fact that it has First Iron & steel factory at Jamshedpur, biggest explosives factory at Gomia, first methane gas well, still, it has several towns and innumerable villages with sub-standard civic amenities. Urbanization ratio is 22.25% only.

Every area surrounding mines has its own issues that the inhabitants live with. Jharia has been combating underground mine fire for about a century now. Huge open cast and underground mines are threatening the health and homes of thousands. Villages or colliery slums like Bokapahadi, Kujama, Ghanudih, Baghdighi, Jairampur, are mining areas in and around Jharia where hundreds of families live above the fire. The land beneath their feet is hot and everywhere smoke and sulphurous gases escape from thousands of fissures and cracks.

CMD of Bharat Coking Coal Limited (BCCL) T.K. Lahiri says that with the approval of the Rs 9,657-crore master plan by both the Centre and State governments and subsequent division of responsibilities between JRDA and BCCL, there remains little confusion.

People of Jharia have no choice. As Jharia burns, the people who have chosen to make this place their home brave the fire and fumes to somehow make a living and feed themselves two square meals a day. Most end up with a film of soot covering their lungs and by the time pneumoconiosis is detected, it is too late to do anything.

A social worker associated with Tata Steel Rural Development Society (TSRDS) who has worked for residents of the coal belt for years stated, “Most of the diseased people are not treated because of lack of are awareness. This has resulted into shortening of life span of the locals.”

The inhabitants of Bokaro and Karanpura coal fields also face threat of eviction. Majority of the health problems in these areas are caused due to unchecked pollution and high levels of toxicity, mine tailings and mine disasters. The expanding operations of mining company Central Coalfields Limited (CCL) are posing an immediate threat to the survival of 1,000 indigenous people facing eviction from the village of Kusum Tola.

These issues are not unknown to the people in the power yet less has been done at ground level to uplift the mass. For those that pull the strings of power, talk of development is simply a means to an end. Health and education projects matter only to the extent till mentioning them helps placate the public.

Nevertheless, the miners and their families work and dwell in these areas, pitted against all the forces. For the workers who are part and parcel of the industry that is backbone of the State’s economy – the richest industry of Jharkhand yet its men are poor!

Walk On -- Motherjane

Last... now that I can see

The future ain't what it used to be.

Like a poet without vision

An object of mockery...

A dreamer who lost his dream to reality.

Won't give up, though the going's slow

I'll trade all my footsteps for a shot at tomorrow.

Tattoo my intentions across these streets of time

And fight till the future is once again mine.

'Cos I'm the immortal..Baptized in fire.

Unable to die, unless I desire,

I'm the light piercing the darkest dawn.

I'm the human spirit Walking on.

I'm down and so close to out

I'm the foot soldier who suffered the rout

But I'll stand again in conquest of pain...

To walk on as a king among men.

I'll make mistakes of that I'm sure.

Lose my strength when I need more.

Taste my fear in life's battlefields

But I won't trade my sword for the shield!!

An Encounter with the Dravidians!!

One of the notable features of the Indian Party System is the presence of a large number of regional parties. By regional party we mean a party which generally operates within a limited geographical area and its activities are confined only to a single or handful of states. The term ‘regionalism’ has two connotations. In the negative sense, it implies excessive attachment to one’s region is preference to the country or the state. In the positive sense it is a political attribute associated with people’s love for their region, culture, language, etc. with a view to maintain their independent identity.

But what actually are the implications when regionalism drives a community beyond just holding up its identity, when conserving one’s own language becomes more than a socio-cultural issue? This is what, as far I understood in 2 years, the Tamil Nadu politics thrives on. It cannot but be a concern of every right thinking man to live with the social anomalies in the so called Dravidian land. This is in fact my personal account as an ‘outsider’ to pen down some strange yet ironical experiences of mine.


The first question my landlord asked me while renting me the house took me by surprise. Mr. Ramalingam, my landlord was not interested in where I came from, where I worked. He rather asked me if I was an Aryan or Dravidian. That is not all, you need to pay more for the same house if you are an ‘Aryan’ ! You might be thinking then what decides whether you are an Aryan. Well , that is too simple for the people who claim that they, the Dravidians are true Indian and rest were nomadic groups who settled in ‘their India’. But is that historically true? Surprisingly enough, no one cares in Tamil Nadu. Their only belief that South Indians or the Dravidians true and pure Indians and rest ‘the north Indians’ are mixed blood or descendants of some nomadic tribe. This is infact the soul of every political agenda there as the names of the political parties suggest Annna Dravidra Munnetra Kazagam . Infact the first manifestation of regionalism was the demand for reorganization of states on linguistic basis, but the most effective play of regionalism was the victory of the DMK against Congress in Tamil Nadu in 1960s.


Now it is deep rooted than where it started. It’s a social issue and not confined to political parties anymore and its further implication whether grave or better can only be seen with years to come. This is just an personal attempt to bring out the irony of the much prevailing phenomena, with which perhaps every ‘North Indian’ who has lived there will agree.