Bellary in Karnataka has the richest iron ore in the world. Not only that Bellary has made enterprising residents super rich, it also has enticed the global Indians in search of iron ore. The precious Bellary ore has been used to help fuel the Chinese economic miracle. And also goes on to help the global steel Czar LN Mittal to run his empire.
G Janardhana Reddy, a constable’s son, is now a state minister of Karnataka. The 42 year-old ore tycoon helped draft the Bharatiya Janata Party government’s state mining policy under which fresh mining leases would be given only to applicants who could ‘value-add’. The policy is a problem for the global tycoons like Mittal. They cannot dig and take the ore to run their plants in Europe or elsewhere.
The owners of several iron ore mines in Karnataka are the state’s powerful politicians — an invincible combination against everyone who accuses mining operations of ruining fields, water sources and public health. Reddy made his money by exporting iron ore to China from the hot and dusty mineral-rich district of Bellary, 290 kilometres north of Bangalore. He is now building a Rs 20,000 crore steel plant in Cudappah (in neighbouring Andhra Pradesh). At least he understood that the national resource should be used to build national economy — though late a realization indeed.
Reddy’s personal wealth is around Rs 1,500 crore, which is more than the cumulative income of over 50 per cent of Bellary’s 15 lakh voters. Three BJP legislators from the district, including Reddy and his elder brother, are ministers in the state cabinet.The mining czars in Bellary, are building indoor swimming pools while the red dust from their mines pollutes fields and reservoirs. The likes of Reddy own two personal helicopters, numerous luxury cars, and vast political power as he cements his party’s reversed fortunes on election eve.
After the 2008 Assembly polls, election commissioners speaking at seminars in Delhi and Mumbai criticised the rank display of wealth, saying it was “destroying democracy”. But that only creates headlines for mainstream media. Back in Bellary, the criticism does not even reach.
In the slums of Bellary, Dalits and Muslims, wait for the money given to voters. “The day before the elections, all parties came and gave Rs 1,000 for every voter,” Carpenter Gannana was quoted in a media report. Predictably the elected representatives who buy votes care less for the benefit of those who sell their votes.
“When I went to the mayor for help some months ago with a small loans government scheme for Dalits, she brushed me off, saying, “Did you vote for me for free?”
In contrast physician T Ramanath, son of Tekur Subramaniam, Bellary’s three-time Member of Parliament from 1947, claims that his family became poorer after his father became an MP. Till 1999, the backward Bellary district was undistinguished on India’s political map, and a Congress stronghold. The party had won every Lok Sabha election since Independence, and chose Bellary to deliver a win to party head Sonia Gandhi in her debut election against Sushma Swaraj. Today, things could not be more different.
Interesting point to note is that Sis Ram Ola, a Congress Minister and a close to the Congress dynasty overruled the courts, mining secretary, the Cabinet Secretary and the claim of NMDC, a mining PSU to help the global steel Czar win mining right in Bellary. The natives of Bellary are caught between the devil and the deep sea. The devil at least pays them money to buy votes, sets up factories to employ them as labourers, but the one from the seven seas will merely take their resource away for the benefit of people from an alien land.
G Janardhana Reddy, a constable’s son, is now a state minister of Karnataka. The 42 year-old ore tycoon helped draft the Bharatiya Janata Party government’s state mining policy under which fresh mining leases would be given only to applicants who could ‘value-add’. The policy is a problem for the global tycoons like Mittal. They cannot dig and take the ore to run their plants in Europe or elsewhere.
The owners of several iron ore mines in Karnataka are the state’s powerful politicians — an invincible combination against everyone who accuses mining operations of ruining fields, water sources and public health. Reddy made his money by exporting iron ore to China from the hot and dusty mineral-rich district of Bellary, 290 kilometres north of Bangalore. He is now building a Rs 20,000 crore steel plant in Cudappah (in neighbouring Andhra Pradesh). At least he understood that the national resource should be used to build national economy — though late a realization indeed.
Reddy’s personal wealth is around Rs 1,500 crore, which is more than the cumulative income of over 50 per cent of Bellary’s 15 lakh voters. Three BJP legislators from the district, including Reddy and his elder brother, are ministers in the state cabinet.The mining czars in Bellary, are building indoor swimming pools while the red dust from their mines pollutes fields and reservoirs. The likes of Reddy own two personal helicopters, numerous luxury cars, and vast political power as he cements his party’s reversed fortunes on election eve.
After the 2008 Assembly polls, election commissioners speaking at seminars in Delhi and Mumbai criticised the rank display of wealth, saying it was “destroying democracy”. But that only creates headlines for mainstream media. Back in Bellary, the criticism does not even reach.
In the slums of Bellary, Dalits and Muslims, wait for the money given to voters. “The day before the elections, all parties came and gave Rs 1,000 for every voter,” Carpenter Gannana was quoted in a media report. Predictably the elected representatives who buy votes care less for the benefit of those who sell their votes.
“When I went to the mayor for help some months ago with a small loans government scheme for Dalits, she brushed me off, saying, “Did you vote for me for free?”
In contrast physician T Ramanath, son of Tekur Subramaniam, Bellary’s three-time Member of Parliament from 1947, claims that his family became poorer after his father became an MP. Till 1999, the backward Bellary district was undistinguished on India’s political map, and a Congress stronghold. The party had won every Lok Sabha election since Independence, and chose Bellary to deliver a win to party head Sonia Gandhi in her debut election against Sushma Swaraj. Today, things could not be more different.
Interesting point to note is that Sis Ram Ola, a Congress Minister and a close to the Congress dynasty overruled the courts, mining secretary, the Cabinet Secretary and the claim of NMDC, a mining PSU to help the global steel Czar win mining right in Bellary. The natives of Bellary are caught between the devil and the deep sea. The devil at least pays them money to buy votes, sets up factories to employ them as labourers, but the one from the seven seas will merely take their resource away for the benefit of people from an alien land.
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