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?