While mining firms are being allotted tracts at breakneck speed, the lack of surveys prevents farmers from asserting rights over lands they have cultivated for decades.
Every few minutes, a truck laden with iron ore zips by Sushilanagar, a village in the Sandur valley of Karnataka’s Ballari district. Ten mines surround the village. Six have opened over the last few years. Clouds of iron ore dust float in from the mines and from the trucks to settle on the region’s corn, groundnut and onion fields.
“Crops wilt under the dust. We used to get 30 tonnes of corn per acre as yield, and now we get just 17 tonnes,” says Chandra Naik, a member of the Scheduled Caste Lambani community who has a four-acre farmland abutting …
Mohit M. Rao is an independent journalist based in Bengaluru. His bylines have appeared in CNN, The Washington Post, The Third Pole, Article 14, Mongabay-India and FiftyTwo, among others. He previously worked with The Hindu. His interests include the environment, human rights and agrarian policies.
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