FUTURE TENSE: Quarrying in progress in Seebkatte

It’s almost afternoon, and Krishnappa is still at home, fussing over his cattle. Even his wife has stopped pestering him to tend to his paddy field ? something that he assiduously did even a few years ago. The paddy farmer in Seebkatte village ? about 45 km south of Bangalore ? used to be obsessive about his work. “Seebkatte always had the best paddy crop in the district. And my crop was among the front-runners,” he says, as he gives his cow a scrub. Those days, Krishnappa spent every waking moment in his paddy field.

But this year, Krishnappa’s field ? located half a kilometre away from a stone quarrying site ? is lying untended. “The quarrying has destroyed my field. It’s been flooded with lose sand,” he says. No paddy means no livelihood. So Krishnappa is calling it quits. “I want to sell my land and leave this village,” he says.

There are no ‘For Sale’ signs around Seebkatte village. But that’s probably because the villagers don’t know the protocol for land sale. Still, the villagers’ intention to sell is clear. Earlier this month, five adjacently located villages in Bangalore’s rural district ? including Seebkatte, Megaladoddi, Chikkarasanahalli, MG Palya and Putterasanadoddi ? announced that they were going up for sale. The village heads are brainstorming to fix a price on the land. “Seebkatte is not conducive for village life anymore. A software company will be better off here,” says Krishnappa.

Located 12 km off Bidadi ? an industrial town situated on the six-lane Bangalore-Mysore Expressway ? Seebkatte is a software firm’s dream location. That’s because Bangalore’s rural district is fast turning into hot urban property. “Bangalore city is growing along the Expressway to Mysore. A dozen villages have already been stamped out to make way for the city. Seebkatte will find plenty of interested buyers,” says K.P. Prasad, president of the local wing of a state farmer’s body, the Karnataka Rajya Ryot Sangha.

Krishnappa, however, is not enthused at finding easy sale deals for his ancestral farmland. “Villages around Bangalore are paying a heavy price for being located close to a fast growing metropolis,” he says.

Stone quarrying and mining is a new-found industry in Bangalore’s rural district. “Stone quarrying started in this area five years ago. Already, there are over 70 mines in the district,” says Prasad. The raw stone hills that abound the Deccan plateau make ideal quarrying sites. Prasad points out that most quarrying sites in his area cater to the growing demand for construction material in Bangalore. “Keeping up with Bangalore’s growth, the last one-and-a-half years have seen frenetic quarrying activity in our taluk Panchayat limits,” says Prasad.

One year ago, the Karnataka Mines and Geology Department granted permission to a Hyderabad-based artificial sand manufacturing company ? Robo Silicon Limited ? to set up a quarrying plant 1.8 km from Seebkatte village. The as-the-crow-flies distance from the village was comfortably higher than the 500-metre mark set by the Supreme Court of India. “We started mining after procuring all the necessary licences and permissions,” says Vijay K. Kosaraju, executive director, Robo Silicon, as he hands out one legal document after another.

Clearly, Robo Silicon was sticking to the rule book. Even then, the company had to shut the plant and evacuate its employees a month ago. Local villagers were up in arms against the company. Along with the local Ryot Sangha, they held demonstrations, dug up the road that leads to Robo Silicon’s mining site ? to hamper the movement of the company’s trucks ? and gheraoed the local district commissioner’s office. “This was the first collective protest by the villagers against mining in the area,” says Prasad. Last week, the district commissioner ordered a committee to be set up to look into the matter.

Prasad feels the protest is not a day too early. “Post-mining, village life is not the same as before,” he says. For one, the village folk don’t sleep to the sounds of owls and crickets any longer. Heavy-duty rock blasting begins after sunset. “The sound of blasts is deafening. Sometimes, it carries on through the night,” says Nagegowda, a resident of MG Palya village.

The villagers also claim the rock blasting is causing cracks in their houses. Krishnappa ? whose house stands at the far end of Seebkatte ? saved money for five years to construct an extra room in his house. “I even sold my healthiest cow,” he says. Three months after its construction, the new room developed a crack on its outer wall. “We can’t use the room now. Water seeps in whenever it rains,” says the paddy farmer.

About 25 houses in Seebkatte ? whose total population comprises 48 families ? have developed cracks.

The 20 rain water-fed lakes in the district have also taken a beating. “Quarrying leaves behind lose sand which flows into the lakes and fields,” says Prasad. The area’s abundant water supply is dwindling. The lake that was earmarked for cattle has dried up. And Krishnappa’s wife ? who earlier strolled down to the lake beside her house to fetch drinking water ? now carts water from a spot 2 km away. “The water in our neighborhood lake is too sandy to drink,” says Krishnappa.

The local farmer’s body plans to arrest the ecological damage. A public interest suit on the environmental and health hazards of mining was filed in the Supreme Court on January 2, this year ? and Bangalore’s mining story is a part of the case.

“Mining activities in rural districts adjoining Bangalore have been included in the case,” says A. Azad, a Delhi-based environmental activist who has filed the PIL. “We will be arguing that mining leads to crop loss and renders land useless. The silica dust generated during mining is a huge health hazard,” says Azad.

On the other hand, Robo Silicon is knocking on legal doors as well. “We have approached the district administration and the police for protection. Our mining plant is not illegal. A few miscreant minds cannot stop us,” says Kosaraju.

The district commissioner’s committee might rule in any side’s favour. But Krishnappa knows his paddy field will never be the same again. For him, it’s the end of an era.