Panaji: Hundreds of trucks carrying ore made last minute dashes to Amona jetty from nearby mines on Thursday, hours before the Supreme Court mining ban came into effect. But the rush in Amona was an exception.
With ore extraction already brought to a halt, all through the rest of the mining belt on Thursday, outside houses and in open grounds, trucks were standing motionless, and life around them also appeared to stand still.
A group of men sat chatting idly inside a temple at Pissurlem in Sattari, one of the busiest mining transportation belts. “In five or six days, you will see men sitting around like this at every nook and corner. We have not known any other means of livelihood. Even if I invest in a grocery store here, there will not be enough money circulating in the village for me to make a profit. Years of mining has also depleted our water sources which was once used for agriculture,” said Anand Parab.
Of the 4,000-odd population of the village, nearly 1,800 work as either drivers or cleaners for mining trucks. Another few hundreds are truck owners and the rest are dependent on ancilliary businesses like garages where trucks are repaired, eateries that drivers and cleaners frequent.
“We are only like coolies transporting the ore. If ore extraction was taking place illegally, why didnt the state government crack down on the mines for so long? Now we are being punished for no fault of ours. Everyone in the city complains about mining, but all the revenue earned from mining is spent in the cities, how much has the government invested in raising infrastructure in the villages in the mining belt?” said Gajanan Vasant Parab.
A former mine employee said that due to the current ban on mining, mining dependents will be terribly hit, much worse than the post-2012 ban.
“People had made a lot of money during the China boom and they had enough to get through the 2012 ban. Only those who had invested in new trucks just before the ban was imposed were affected because they could not recover their investment. But this time around people have already exhausted their finances trying to recover from the 2012 ban and the second ban has come too soon,” he said. He felt that more people employed in mines will lose their jobs this time around as the hope of mining resuming any time soon is bleaker as the Supreme Court has raised questions on the process used for renewal of mining licences itself.
The chatty group of men at Pissurlem suddenly fell silent, when asked when they had last ploughed their fields. “Maybe in the 1990s?” guessed Ashok Parab.
