How Bellary was laid waste

By Dilip -
Karnataka’s Lokayukta Santosh Hegde’s report is a sordid story on the rise of India’s mining poster boy, Bellary. The protagonists of the script, the Reddy brothers, used muscle and money to grease their way through government departments. Initially, it was all gold. But Hegde’s report exposed the dingy substrate of Bellary’s mining operations. Heads have rolled, and the political establishment of Karnataka has been shaken up. BJP leader B S Yeddyurappa was made to quit the chief minister’s post. The Supreme Court has stepped in to ban mining on the basis of a report by the Central Empowered Committee (CEC). The biggest losers have been the environment and the people living in the area. M Suchitra reports from Bellary and Kumar Sambhav Shrivastavaanalyses the CEC report
The all-powerful iron ore mining mafia of Karnataka has hurled red dust into the eyes of democratic India with impunity, and for long. Convinced of their invincibility, the Reddy brothers, along with their mentors and cohorts, have ravaged the state’s rich mines. Between April 2006 and July 2010 the state lost Rs 16,085 crore due to illegal mining.
mining
When Karnataka Lokayukta Justice N Santosh Hegde submitted his 25,228-page final report to governor H R Bharadwaj on July 27, it revealed the colossal plunder of public wealth by those in power. The report gives, with evidence, a detailed account of corruption, collusion and illegalities committed right from the ground level. The report of the watchdog against corruption forced chief minister B S Yeddyurappa to resign, causing much embarrassment to the ruling BJP. His successor, D V Sadananda Gowda, dropped from his cabinet tourism minister Gali Janardhan Reddy and revenue minister Gali Karunakara Reddy, indicted in the report. Besides the Reddy brothers, those indicted were Yeddyurappa’s cabinet colleagues: health minister B Sriramulu and food and civil supplies minister V Somanna.
The names of more than 700 mining officials and 400 companies engaged in mining, iron ore trade and steel manufacture figure in the report. Four mining majors—JSW Steel Ltd owned by the Jindal Group, Adani Enterprises Ltd, Sesa Goa Ltd and MSPL Ltd owned by the Baltoda Group—are listed as accused, besides the National Minerals Development Corporation (NMDC), India’s largest public sector iron ore producer. So is former Karnataka chief minister and Janata Dal (S) leader H D Kumaraswami. The name of Aarti A Lad, proprietor of mining firm VSL Enterprises and wife of business magnate-turned-Congress MP Anil Lad, also figures in the report.
Karnataka contributes about one-fourth of the country’s annual iron production, which is 245 million tonnes. Sixty per cent of this comes from the state’s Bellary district which has 124 mines, most of them within forest area. The frenzy to extract iron ore started in 1999. And with it began the saga of unholy collusion between the political class and the mining and steel industries. Joining hands, they gifted new leases and renewed the defunct ones. Large-scale mining led to massive environmental destruction.
In March 2007, the Karnataka government asked the Lokayukta to probe allegations of illegal mining. It was asked to “fix responsibility and initiate action against all public servants, including ministers, whether in office or otherwise”, beginning from 2000.
But investigating a mining lobby with immense money and muscle power was no mean task. The minister in-charge of Bellary district was Janardhan Reddy, the mining baron himself. Almost all officials in the forest, revenue and police departments were handpicked by the Reddy brothers.. Read more:
http://www.downtoearth.org.in/content/how-bellary-was-laid-waste

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