Bellary,beyond its mines

It’s not all fun and games for everyone in Bellary. In a town both obsessed with and repulsed by its famous mining industry,the clichéd epiphanies of modernisation and urbanisation are amply evident. Four-wheel drives too big for the potholed roads muscle their way in even as bullock carts laden with grains struggle to inch up Bangalore Road into the main market. Cowl Bazaar,while still famous for its biryani,is peppered with Bombay chaat,sweet corn and gobi manchurian carts. Hindi has found its way into everyday Telugu and Kannada,but English,more often than not,is beyond reach. A 40×60 plot in Ganesh Colony,which sold for Rs 4-5 lakh a few years ago,now costs Rs 14-16 lakh.

Four km from town,two paddy-growing villages,Chaganur and Siriwara,stand to lose a thousand acres of farmland to a proposed airport. “The town already has an airport,but commercial airlines stopped plying because of negligible traffic from Bellary. There is another airport near the Jindal plant at Vijaynagar,just 35 km away. Where is the need for another airport? The land that the government wants to acquire is irrigated by the Tungabhadra project,and if disturbed,could leave the nearby low-lying fields dry,” says Mallikarjuna Reddy,an advocate who has been helping farmers resist the proposed land acquisition drive.

Seen from Reddy’s fourth-floor office in SN Pet,the Sanganakallu hills—where archaeological excavations have confirmed habitation since Neolithic times—outside Bellary rise above the townscape on one side; on another,Bellary Fort,a relic of the Vijayanagara period later expanded by Haider Ali,is gilded by the sun. The fort,whose 400 steps snake around a granitic hillock,offers panoramic views of the town and the mining hills beyond. At the base of the hillock stands the Malleswara temple,its colourful walls contrasting with the smooth boulders surrounding it.

“It is said that a merchant came here a long time ago and found there was no temple. So he began worshipping his balla (a grain measure) as the Shiva linga,and thus was born the name ‘Ballary’,” says the priest.

Tourists are not common here,and Manorama,who works at the Zila Parishad and lives in a working women’s hostel,is curious. “We didn’t have visitors before. Things are changing,” she says,walking around the sanctum with her head bowed.

Bellary itself has changed,the spoils of mining obvious. Fancy street lights line the three or four main roads that have been selectively widened. Along these,prominent miners and politicians are building palatial residences with compound walls over a hundred metres long. A week after a Lokayukta report exposed the messy innards of the mining industry in the Bellary-Hospet-Sandur belt,prompting its shutdown by the Supreme Court,these residences continue to rise,brick by blatant brick. A poster of B Sriramulu,MLA from the Bellary Rural constituency who was health minister in the former Yeddyurappa Cabinet,adorns one such upcoming structure on Parvathi Nagar Main Road. A cream-coloured wall with elaborate arches encloses what locals say is the minister’s new home in Bellary. “He thinks he is Krishnadevaraya reborn,and this is his idea of a palace,” says one Bellary resident,adding that even this pales in comparison to the one Janardhana Reddy and his family are building.

Indeed,an upcoming property on Siruguppa Road that is said to be the Reddys’ new residence looks nothing short of a five-star resort. The Reddy brothers—Gali Karunakara Reddy,Gali Janardhana Reddy and Gali Somashekhara Reddy—who wield considerable political power and have amassed great wealth from mining activities in Bellary through their two companies,Obalapuram Mining Company (OBC) and Anantapur Mining Company (AMC),have been found to have flouted many laws and to have engaged in illegal mining and export. The recent Lokayukta report accuses them of running an illegal mining mafia through a network of front companies,among other things.

“The Reddys have acquired another 300 acres within Bellary municipality limits and are building a memorial for their mother,called Rukmini Avenue,” says a source. Across the street from the Chenga Reddy memorial school for mentally challenged children,on the gates of Rukmini Avenue are the initials ‘AMC’.

The people of Bellary are so used to these extravagances that an Audi sedan on the streets doesn’t turn heads. Two years ago,when a clock tower that stood at Royal Circle,the town centre,was demolished overnight—apparently,trucks carrying iron ore couldn’t easily turn around it—no one questioned the act. “We all knew who did it,and yet,we didn’t. We pretended there was never a circle there,” says a resident.

The writ of the Reddys now challenged,Tapal Ganesh,who runs the TNR Mining Company in Bellary along with his brother and sister,feels vindicated. Born into a mining family,Ganesh was the springboard for voices against illegal mining in Bellary that ultimately led to the clampdown. However,a miner himself,he fears he will be out of work now.

“All I am saying is,illegal mining should be banned. But let legal mining continue,” he says,sitting in an armchair at his home in Ganesh Colony. A man in a Karnataka Police uniform,armed with a gun,sits himself down a few feet behind him. “In April 2010,I was attacked by eight people near Bala Residency Hotel. The government then gave me 24-hour security,so an armed guard is always with me,” Ganesh explains.

Tapal Ganesh—‘tapal’ means ‘post’,a reference to his great-grandfather’s occupation during the British era—talks freely about corruption in the government and the failure of the system to bring to book people,who,he says, have been “looting the forest”. “My grandfather owned 2,000 acres of mining land in Bellary under the 1956 lease,but back then,mining wasn’t profitable,so he abandoned most of it in the 1980s. It is only after the year 2000 that mud became gold. There was a time when you could make only Rs 5-10 per tonne of ore,now a tonne of good quality ore can fetch Rs 5,000-6,000,” he says in Hindi.

Ganesh has a mining lease spanning 11 hectares. And for each hectare,he says he is required to pay the forest department Rs 7 lakh to be used towards afforestation. “But they haven’t planted any trees,” he says.

Since the mining boom in Bellary began a decade ago,environmentalists have expressed concern about the increase in mining dust in the air and pollution from the 60-plus sponge iron factories that have come up. “Women and children who work in the mines have developed breathing problems. The district is still very poor,and education isn’t a priority for rural families,” says T Saradha,Ganesh’s sister and district project manager for an MHRD initiative for women’s empowerment.

Ganesh estimates 1.5 lakh people in Bellary district are directly or indirectly dependent on the mining industry and now stand to lose their livelihood. Manikantha,a 17-year-old lorry cleaner,is one of them. Son of agricultural labourers,he would earn Rs 200 for a 24-hour shift wiping down lorries after they delivered iron ore shipments. Lorries are his life,says the primary school dropout,who has refused to join his parents in the fields. The family lives in a makeshift shed with an open toilet on barren land in Onnalli village,just outside Bellary town. Sitting on the mud floor of the shed—divided by a curtain into a living/sleeping area and kitchen—Manikantha points to the TV. “I keep watching the news to see when mining will resume,” he says,sheepishly.

Forty-nine lorries are parked outside the Road Transport Authority office in Bellary. They were seized a day after the apex court imposed the ban on mining. “The lorries had been loaded before the order was issued. We did not know what was going on,” says Ravi Kumar,a driver for 18 years,whose yellow Ashok Leyland is among those seized. Kumar,who supported his wife and children on an income of Rs 2,500 a month,is among the 25,000 lorry drivers who are out of work after the ban,says K Venkat Rao,president of the Bellary District Transport Operators’ Association and vice-president of the Karnataka Lorry Owners’ Association.

“Seize the cargo,but let the lorries go,” Rao says. “There are over 900 lorry owners in the district. Most of them are dependent on the iron ore trade,” he adds,as a cargo train chugs by,carrying a shipment of coke to sponge iron plants.

The mining boom has also contributed to the development—however skewed—of the town,says Bharani,the owner of Point Blank Jeans and Shirts,a six-year-old store in the Bellary Cantonment area that is known for its cotton apparel. “Road widening is a major achievement. When my wife came here from Vijayawada in 2002,she was appalled at the condition of the roads. She said,‘How am I going to live here all my life?’” says Bharani,looking up from some cloth samples that have just arrived at his plush office dotted with European porcelain figures. Garment manufacture has been a major industry in Bellary since the British sourced their uniforms from here.

“Over 10,000 Bellary residents are engaged in the industry,and with mines closing,more labour may be available to manufacturers,” says Bharani,who wears a striped Point Blank shirt. The company,with production units in Bangalore and Bellary,makes Rs 9 crore from retail sales and Rs 25 crore overall every year,he says. Bharani has made sure the brand name is splashed all over Bellary town. “The idea behind naming it Point Blank was that you wouldn’t miss it,” he says.

Youngsters in Bellary,however,have their eyes set on bigger brands. “Everyone wants Wrangler or Lee jeans,” says Pinal Jain,a Class XII student. In just the last one year,major brands like Woodland,Adidas and Nike have opened outlets in town,says Sreenivas,who owns two bakeries and runs a hoteliering consultancy. Cakes and Bakes,his eatery in Gandhi Nagar,one of the older residential areas in town,is a popular hangout thronged by the college crowd in the evenings. According to Sreenivas,who has helped set up two hotels in Bellary,the food industry here has great potential.

“There are no fine dining places here. Also,the men aren’t comfortable with drinking in front of their families,and go only to bars to drink,which we hope to change. While the hotel industry has stagnated for the past year or so,there is a lot of scope in terms of restaurants,” he says.

The mining boom may have concentrated wealth in the hands of a few,but the trickle-down,legal and otherwise,has meant greater spending power with the middle classes. Back at the fair,shouting above the din of the joy rides,Mohammad Jabbar,who has come from Hyderabad to sell premium glass bangles,is happy with the sales. “This is my first time at the fair,but I easily sell goods worth Rs 3,000-4,000 every day. Customers here want good quality,” says Jabbar. On Bangalore Road,Uttam Chand,who has an Asian Paints shop,says the demand for branded paints has gone up in the last three years. “There is a lot of new construction,” he says.

Like in India’s other small towns,aspirations in Bellary are rising. Near SP Circle is a four-year-old Police Gymkhana with a swimming pool and squash and badminton courts donated by big miners. The moneyed no longer shop in Bellary—they drive to Bangalore,five hours away. Bharani’s children,for instance,like to visit Bangalore at least once every two months,and they stay at the ITC Royal Gardenia,a five-star hotel. As for Ganesh,who dropped out of school after Class IX,he wants his children,a son and a daughter,to become doctors or engineers. “Natural resources won’t last forever. Education will,” he says.