Shifting sands of Barmer

The change is obvious and so are the reasonsit began after the British oil exploration giant Cairn,in a joint venture with the Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC),set up its India project in Barmer about six years ago. This was followed by the setting up in February 2009 of a 1,080 MW power plant by the Barmer Lignite Mining Company Limited (BLMCL)a joint venture of the Rajasthan Government and Jindal Energy.

The Town Then

Six years ago,Barmer was a dust bowl. Other than the usual problems,Barmer was also cut off from every other place. It was a small town that housed the district headquarters, says Atul,who has been posted in the Barmer collectorate for 30 years now.

He recalls that for miles and miles around the town,there was nothing but arid land interspersed with a few farms and agricultural plots. In summers,the temperature hovers around 45 to 48 degrees Celsius. Other than top officials like the collector,superintendent of police and a couple of others,we all had to make do with fans,coolers and plenty of wet handkerchiefs, he says.

Dalbir Singh,a traffic policeman,says he used to have a harrowing time getting accident victims to the government hospital in Barmer. Six years ago,there were very few four wheelers on the road. We would take accident victims to the hospital in auto rickshaws or if we were lucky,a police vehicle, he says. These days,his problems are differentthe traffic on the road is getting unmanageable,he says.

And though Rajasthan successfully managed to sell its rustic charm to tourists,Barmer got left behind. Foreigners need a special permit to visit the city because its only 60 km from the border,so tourism never really took off. In fact,in 2003,we had two hotels in Barmer,a government-owned hotel with two rooms and another private hotel near the bus stand, says Dalbir Singh.

The Big Bucks

Then in January 2004,Cairn India discovered oil reserves in the Mangala Oil field near Baytu,about 40 km from Barmer town. It was said to be the largest onshore discovery in the country in more than 20 years. With two other oil fields being discovered after that at Bhagyam and Aishwariya,CILs oil reserves in Barmer are expected to exceed 3.5 billion barrels of crude. While oil began flowing from the Mangala field in August last year,CIL forecasts that Barmer will account for close to 20 per cent of Indias crude oil when all three fields operate at full strength. According to CIL,at peak production,the Barmer oil fields will produce 8.75 million tonnes or 1,75,000 barrels per day.

CILs presence in Barmer is spread over 3,111 sq km. The company has invested close to $1.8 billion here and expects to invest a total of $4 billion. According to the Rajasthan government,the royalty from the oil would fetch them Rs 12,000 crore in the first five years,while the central government will earn more than Rs 45,000 crore as its profit from petroleum revenue.Two years ago,CIL and ONGC acquired 3,300 bighas of land worth more than Rs 20 crore and,sources say,they might aquire another 3,000 bighas.

The other big presence in Barmer is that of Raj West,a joint collaboration of the Rajasthan State Mines and Minerals and Jindal Power,that came to Barmer in February last year. The company is setting up eight 135 MW lignite-based power plants that will produce 1,080 MW of power. Recently,their company,the Barmer Lignite Mining Company Limited (BLMCL),acquired 17,592 bighas (or 29,378 acres) from 592 families in seven villages. According to the Rajasthan government,another 26,000 bighas will soon be acquired at the same rates,while the power company will acquire another 3,300 bighas.

These two big companies have brought big changes to Barmer. And though BLMCL is said to have invested more money in the recent past than CIL,it is the latter that is credited with setting off the change in the desert districts economy.

The City Now

Swank SUVs and luxury sedans lord over the roads of Barmer,edging out the camel carts and auto rickshaws that used to plod through the dusty roads. In 2003,there were no takers for the rooms in the towns two hotels. Now,the managers of the citys 18 hotels,built over the last four years,barely have time to look up when you approach them with booking requests.

A spokesman of Cairn India Limited says the company has booked up two hotels for two years,another two hotels partially,as well as an entire resort on the outskirts of Barmer.

According to Cairn,the project has created employment opportunities for over 10,000 people in its construction arm. Also,another 700 sub-contractors work for the project and 90 per cent of them are from Barmer. The company has also hired 250 tractors and 400 vehicles.

Barmers Congress MP Harish Chowdhary says the transformation is nothing short of a miracle. Five years ago,no one would have imagined that the people of Barmer would have to think of investing their money intelligently. Now,everybody wants to own land,build houses and buy cars, he says.

Ram Singh Bothiya is among the 45 people in Bothiya Jargir and Bothiya Prohitan,villages in Barmer,who became millionaires overnight when the government acquired land for lignite mining as part of the Raj West power project. Each landowner was paid Rs 1.5 lakh per bigha. My family owns around 200 bighas,of which we used only a fraction for farming, says Bothiya. But the recent deal changed all that. We have never seen so much money before, he says.

In 2009,when BLMCL acquired 17,592 bighas from people in seven villages,Bothiya was chairperson of the Barmer Farmers Association and helped farmers strike the deal.

We used to grow bajra,wheat and mustard for generations but now,all the land has been acquired and most people have been compensated handsomely. In fact,five years ago,maybe three families owned cars,now everybody in our village Bothiya Jargir has at least an SUV and a smaller car, says Bothiya. He says that his family bought two cars and was presently looking at investing in land in other cities in Rajasthan.

However,Bothiya knows the perils of quick money. We are all farmers and have no other skill set. Though the crores we got will keep us going for a few years,many of the farmers have never seen this kind of money and need to invest it wisely, he says.

Recently,the Barmer municipality cancelled a Rs 8-crore deal for a 250×250 feet plot,claiming the rate was half of what they expected to get. Incidentally,the same area of land was sold for Rs 6 crore a year ago,but was cancelled after the buyer decided the land was not usable.

Ajay Ramawat,a property dealer in Barmer for 10 years,believes Barmers real estate growth is higher than even Jaipurs,matched only perhaps by Gurgaons growth. A plot of land worth Rs 5 lakh in 2000 wont be available for anything less than Rs 20 lakh, says Ramawat.

Barmers Station Road is the most expensive stretch of land in the city. A 1,000-sq-foot plot here costs nothing less than Rs 1.5 crore,he says. It was just a market full of shops. Now there are four three-star hotels,with two more coming up,as well as a multiplex.

Such is the boom that property dealers claim there is no land to be acquired within a 20-km radius of the city. Everybody realises that land is like gold now,while only five years ago,they all wanted to get rid of their land. Even rent rates have skyrocketed, says Ramawat. Rent for a three-bedroom house can even go up to Rs 1 lakh.

Ramawat says that almost every household in Barmer boasts of a property dealer in the family. Its a simple trade,you buy a plot of land and sell it and you become a property dealer in Barmer, he laughs.

Bothiya,the farmer-turned-millionaire,says with the new-found confidence of someone who has been talking money: The way things are going,Barmer is sure to overtake Udaipur and Jodhpur in the near future. In fact,we hear there will be another land acquisition by Raj West. Then there will be more crorepatis in Barmer than any other place in Rajasthan.