Stone mines: Ravaging workers' lungs and land

DABI,

BUNDI

DISTRICT: On the 55-km bus ride from Kota to Dabi, the desert spreads out right till the horizon. Such unhindered view of land meeting sky is rare for the city-bred. Along the route, one chances on

mini-tornadoes

, as the wind swirls up sand in the heat.

One alights at Dabi and then carries on one’s journey to Budhpura village in a mini-bus, packed to capacity. A fellow rider speaks of how his brother has recently received the Rs1 lakh compensation granted to patients of silicosis; he has himself been sick several years, but received no money at all. Ram Dev, a worker with the NGO Mine Labour Protection Campaign explains that compensation is offered only to those certified as suffering from silicosis; it’s not enough to have TB.

Ram Dev says that since the NGO began work in this village in 2013, 14 people have died. The government has announced compensation of Rs 3 lakh to the kin of the dead, but none of the 14 families in this village who have suffered a death because of this incurable disease has yet received compensation.

It is not human health alone that is affected by the rampant mining. As one alights at Budhpura, one can see hills. On closer inspection, though, one discovers that these mounds that look like hills are actually debris from the

stone mines

, piled up over the decades.

There is at least one spot where the mines have touched water. What looks like a scenic lake is evidence of how forgiving nature is, for this is how it appears when stone is ripped out till the earth can yield no more.