Not far from one of Tamil Nadu’s most celebrated temple towns, man is playing devil. Here in a sprawling countryside, mountains have vanished, water bodies have gone dry, archaeological sites have been vandalised and paddy fields have been mined. As for the local villagers, well, not many of them exist as they are being evicted from their homes.
All for the greed of granite, which is being shipped to different parts of the world for thousands of crores of rupees.
The villages in and around Madurai are being turned inexorably into a mining pit — what’s more, it’s happening with the help of state government officials who turn a Nelson’s eye to the whole issue.
“There is a parallel administration running here,” says P V Dharmalingam, panchayat president of Keelavalavu village, some 38 km from Madurai. “The granite industry is like a mafia. These firms have cheated gullible farmers and usurped their land.”
Most of the villagers have been running from pillar to post for years, seeking the compensation that was promised for their land, which was bought by one of the leading granite firms in the area. Some of the villagers have lost all hope.
“We have approached the district administration, but to no avail. We have lost hope,” says Thangaraj who, among the many villagers, says he was cheated by the firm.
Adds Dharmalingam: “We even wrote to (Chief Minister M) Karunanidhi, highlighting the plight of the farmers and villages affected by quarrying.” He then provides a copy of the formal complaint.
Piquantly enough, even state government officials live in constant fear. They refuse to answer questions about quarrying operations. Some village and state government officials admit that they were being threatened, but concede that they can’t go on record about the quarrying operations.
“We constantly face threats. Even last week, I was threatened when I was reluctant to bend the rules,” says one senior official who requested to withhold his name. “Fear is a constant in our lives.”
Against this backdrop, it is a given that the rules are bent and often outrightly broken to accommodate the interests of one particular granite firm, the largest in the area.
I got a taste of it during a visit to a village. Granite company officials tried to intimidate me and asked for my identity. I later learn that they even threatened the villagers whom I had gone to meet.
The threats and muscleman tactics are just one side of the story. The other side is the rampant illegal quarrying that goes on despite all the rules to prevent it.
Vast reserves
Tamil Nadu has vast resources of granite of different qualities. Total reserves are about 710 million cubic metres. Kunnam Black of Tindivanam, Paradiso of Dharmapuri,
Jubrana of Pudukkottai and Kashmir White of Madurai are the prized varieties in the international market. The major players are Tamil Nadu Minerals, PRP Granites, Gem Granites, Pallava Granites, Rani Granites and Enterprising Enterprises. Tamil Nadu Minerals Limited has sold the quarrying contract in Madurai to Delby Granites Chennai, which later gave the contract to PRP Granites.
The government is said to be losing thousands of crores of rupees each year to smugglers. And they are none other than some of the firms extracting granite. A source reveals that 288 vehicles smuggling granite were seized last year. The penalty paid for this was Rs 1.06 crore. Other sources add that this is just a tiny fraction of the stuff smuggled out. The villagers agree. They describe the state government’s checkposts to prevent smuggling as mere eyewash.
The government gets Rs 24 crore as seigniorage fee, which is described as a fraction of the income it should rightly receive. Sources claim that most of the granite in Madurai district is smuggled abroad. The sources say that for every slab shipped legally, eight to 10 are illegally shipped.
This is how it goes. A car with a valid permit for one truckload leads a convoy of several trucks to a yard in Thoothukudi. If a particular lorry is checked, the car driver simply hands over the permit for that vehicle.
If another one is seized, the smugglers have an ingenious method to get around the problem. A writ petition is filed in court stating that the vehicle named in the permit broke down and the load was therefore shifted to another lorry. It is a violation perhaps, but hardly a crime, they say.
Court records show innumerable instances of identical petitions filed by the same firm. It is also alleged that certain court officials are in cahoots with the smugglers.
Village panchayats complain that their permission is never sought for quarrying. The worst is that few villages get the royalty that is collected every year. The allocation last year under this head was Rs 16.85 crore, says an official source.
But the amount has not reached the villages. “We haven’t received a single penny,” shrugs Dharmalingam. “We don’t have a hospital and there is only one school in a dilapidated building, which is 114 years old. Where does the money go? We want a probe by central government agencies.”
No permissions
There are more than 150 quarries in Madurai. district. Of these, 135 are on patta land and the rest on poromboke land. The district collector’s permission is essential for mining poromboke land, while the permission of the tahsildar and rural development officer is needed for patta land.
But the quarry owners are violating all the norms. They have started quarrying even around the water bodies, in some cases releasing water from the tanks so that it doesn’t affect their operations. Complaints are useless, so many farmers do without water. Some in despair have sold their land to the granite firm. To add insult to injury, many of them have not been paid for their land. Again, there is no one to listen to their story — not the police, not the district officials.
A former district collector says the firms are building roads and water tanks and providing infrastructure to the villages. But the villagers have other tales. Many say their land has been stolen from them.
As for building roads and water tanks, the evidence clearly shows quarrying being conducted even in water tanks. Even a public path has been encroached upon, cutting off farmers from their lands.
The irony is the state government officials are more or less backing the granite firms instead of listening to the villagers’ complaints. The villagers are living on hope that the government will act to protect their livelihood and cultural heritage. And if the government fails to act the day is not far off when Madurai will be reduced to a land of pits.
A phoenix in the making
“They have threatened me, burnt my home and have even gone to the extent of changing the patta of the land,” says Ponnazhagu who is fighting a legal battle against the granite firm that has ravaged her life.
“All the documents are in my name but they have changed patta in their name. I will fight them,” says the 26-year-old Dalit woman, who has lost both her legs due to polio, and travels in her modified scooter.
“Even my house was burnt by granite firm officials,” she alleges and shows us the embers of the burnt house. “Why should I be afraid of them,” she says while displaying her land records.
Ponnazhagu has a mere 64 cents of land in the area, but she stopped the entire quarrying operations after she approached the court when the granite firm dumped the mining wastes in her land. “It was reduced to a dumpyard,” she says. She even filed a criminal case against the workers, the police arrested few. “These happen every now and then,” she says with a painful smile. Ponnazhagu may be a disabled woman but she has a heart of steel to challenge the mighty granite firm. She may be the ray of hope for the villagers, struggling to protect their land and water resources from the firm.
Free for all
If it had not been for the Madurai Bench of High Court, the Panchapandavar Hill that houses the 9th and 10th century Jain monuments would have ceased to exist.
The place is easily accessible by a small mud motorable road near Keelavalavu. As one walks through the hills, it is surrounded by huge slabs of stones quarried from the hills.
At the entrance, one can see the Archaeological Survey of India signboard that mentions the length and breadth of the surroundings belonging to the department.
But the irony is that the district officials and department of mines allowed the hill to be quarried. “Even the district collector argued for the firm, least bothered that he has to protect the national heritage,” says a villager.
A natural spring is situated near the quarrying site. Villagers from Keelavalavu and surrounding areas use the water during festivals and marriages. Now it is no more accessible. An age-old cart track that was existing across the quarrying site has been blocked. And now villagers have to take the circuitous path laid out by a granite firm. Some farmers fear if the firm stops them from venturing into the path, then they cannot have access to their fields.
Currently, quarrying operations have stopped around the hill following the court order, but enough damage has been done to the water bodies. A small oorani (pond) situated on the quarry site is found deformed.
Atop the hill, one can see the remains of the hills of Madurai. They were once a landmark for the area but are now being quarried by the granite firm.
Given the way state government officials defend the quarrying in and around the hill, it would be hardly surprising how many rules have been bent to allow quarrying in the villages. While the high court has stopped quarrying, the question remains: will the officials who were responsible for providing permission to the private firm be punished under the law?
shivakumarc@epmltd.com