The State Government has recommended the Centre for allotment of the Khandadhar mines to the 12000 MT Posco steel mill in Jagatsinghpur for mining iron ore to meet its requirement, despite protest from several quarters. Keonjhar, Sundargarh and Mayurbhanj districts are having heavy and rich iron ore and other mineral deposits. Not only these districts but their neigbouring areas in Jharkhanda are also equally rich in minerals.
About 170 mines in Odisha are active these days. These are the areas where many dead mines have been left abandoned too. Tata and other private and non-private firms have got captive mines in the tract and have used many mines for extraction of raw material to their units for a decade or more. In the process, after some mines exhausted, they were cast off as dead.
The whole hilly tract of the region plays a role in influencing the regional climate. If physiographic feature of a region is altered or tampered with, it has an impact on the whole ecology. Khandadhar is now going to be a victim of undue human interference after mining takes place in the hills inexorably. This is an area where a dense population of various tribal groups and their multiple cultural patterns are found.
At present, the State Government has recommended the Union to sanction 6,204.325 hectares of land in the hills for extraction of iron ore by Posco. It is therefore a mega mining project of the South Korean venture and is likely to take a long time to develop the area for mining. The area covers vast forest land in Bonai sub- division of Sundargarh district and Keonjhar sub- division. The whole mining lease area spreads over 34 villages of Paudi Bhuina tribes and nears 10 villages of other tribes of the region. These tribals basically depend on nature for maintenance of their livelihood. The company has to destroy long swathes of forests to develop the mines. The forest types of the region are northern tropical Singhbhumi evergreen sal, northern tropical moist deciduous and northern tropical dry deciduous.
Khandadhar water fall is 161km high and unique of its kind. Since the area is like the shape of a razor, it is called Khandadhar. The fall has a vertical height and wide catchment areas, which covers the proposed mining lease area. The fall acts as tributary of the Brahmani river as well. The Khandadhar hills are a potent source of water. The tribes consider the hills as their mother and their religious sentiments are very closely intertwined with the mountain. The lush green area is also home to a big variety of animal and bird population. The animals found here include tiger, panther or leopard, elephant, bison, bear, boar, Nilgai, deer and samber etc. There are many rodents, reptiles and amphibians living in the whole ecological empire. So once mining starts, it would serve a big blow to the rich flora and fauna of the region and ravish its greenery. The water fall, which is built through an ecological process of thousands of years, will vanish soon.
The Khandadhar stream which is a major source of water of river Brahmani will be further polluted for mining of hematite from the plateau. The river Bramhani is now most polluted river of the Asian continent, where the aquatic bio diversity is unsafe and diminishing very fast. Use of water from the river also leads to various kinds of diseases among the local inhabitants. The communities which are primarily dependent on fishing from the wetland are suffering most with fishing having fallen drastically.
Odisha’s tiger habitats have also shrunk fast due to the increasing industrial activities. The natural habitats of the big cats, elephants and other carnivores and herbivores including avifauna and orchids are now being destroyed due to industrial and mining activities in Keonjhar, Mayurbhanj and Bonai forests. Man-animal conflicts have become rampant here.
The forest dwellers are the worst sufferers for mining and industrial activities. They don’t like the intrusion of outsiders in their habitat. It is because modern men have always thrown the tribals into the brink and destroyed their forests, culture and heritage.
Presently the State Government has been running a green project in the tract. The sole objectives are to restore the degraded forest land and improve the income level of the tribals by promoting sustainable forest management. It was launched in 2006-2007 and is scheduled to be continued up to 2015. But, when the natural forests of the Bonai and Keonjhar division are on a destruction course, how can the Government win the confidence of the tribals and associate them in the forest conservation work and generation of new greeneryIJ
(The writer is a former senior forest officer and an environmentalist)