SAMBALPUR: Next time you see a roadside vendor here selling roasted maize/corn, do not rush to buy it. Charred on the top and juicy inside, the corn may taste good, but little do customers know that the charcoal can well have been brought from the local cremation ghat.
And it is not the only trade where charcoal is ferried from the shanties near the cremation ground. Electricians undertake earthing work for newly-built houses and laundry servicers use it to heat up iron. There are other users too such as bidi manufacturing industry, goldsmiths and blacksmiths. Even flowers are recycled from cremation ground.
If wood is burnt in insufficient air, it smoulders to form charcoal. The first of the man-made fuels, it generates more heat than fire from an ordinary wood. The reason being it is porous like a sponge and each of the tiny holes generates heat-forming gases. This property of the charcoal has made it popular in certain trades, even though procuring it is a difficult task.
Until the early mid-century, charcoal was used widely for smelting iron and other ores and also as domestic fuel. But the fast depletion of green canopy due to rampant felling of trees changed the scenario and the Government put a ban on charcoal making.
After the State Government declared a moratorium on felling of trees in 1992, licences issued to make charcoal were cancelled leaving the charcoal users to fend for themselves. While some users managed to get it from villages located in forested areas where the locals collect wood and convert it into charcoal, others, mostly in urban areas, have no other way out but to fall back on the shanties in and around the crematoriums to collect charcoal and sell it to users.
Shortage of charcoal has been forcing users to purchase it from various sources unaware that they have been procured from shanties. While the corn sellers light up charcoal and blow it by using hand fans to roast the corn, the bidi industry uses it to bake bundles of bidi to remove moisture. Goldsmiths and blacksmiths use it to melt metals.