AS people all over the world ushered in the new year, a major accident took place due to illegal mining in Khanak Dadam hills of Bhiwani district of Haryana. In this January 1 accident, five labourers died and two were seriously injured. There was a big explosion in the hill of Dadam at 9 in the morning in which seven labourers and two pokland machines and four dumper vehicles were buried under the stones. A stone slipped from the mountain and fell, whose length was 40 feet, the width was 30 feet and whose weight is said to be seven tons. When the mountain slipped, at that time seven labourers were working 800 feet below with their vehicles. Some labourers had gone to drink tea nearby at the same time, due to which further loss of life was avoided.

Hearing the news, the district administration reached Dadam and hundreds of NDRF, SDRF and army personnel were called from Ghaziabad. A team of doctors, along with three ambulances, and two fire brigade vehicles were also brought. When the rescue and relief work started, the bodies of three labourers buried under stones were taken out and later two bodies and two seriously injured labourers were taken out. The deceased were hammer operator Sanjay of Morkhi village, dumper driver Bijendra Baganwala, pokland operator Toofan Singh of Bihar, Dinesh Dutt, a resident of Koi village from Hoshiarpur, Punjab, and Dharambir, a resident of Bhaloth, Rohtak.

DELEGATION VISITS SITE

As soon as the information about this incident was received, a joint delegation of CITU, All India Kisan Sabha and the Communist Party of India (Marxist) visited the spot. The delegation gathered information about the whole matter, in which it was found that due to indiscriminate mining and disregard of safety rules of the contractor company Govardhan Mines and Mineral Pvt Ltd, this accident took place. Despite complaints of illegal mining from district officials to the chief minister, no action was taken. The mining department, labour department, district administration and the state government criminally kept silent and illegal mining continued due to the nexus of mining mafia and corrupt politicians, which culminated in this terrible accident. A joint delegation of party and mass organisations demanded an impartial inquiry into the entire incident, through a committee constituted under the chairmanship of a present judge of the Punjab and Haryana High Court.

A demand letter was sent to the chief minister through the sub-divisional officer of Tosham, in which it was demanded that Rs 50 lakh compensation should be given to the dependents of each deceased, one dependent should be given a government job, and for each seriously injured free treatment should be given and a compensation of Rs 25 lakh. While cancelling the contract of the present guilty company, demand was also made to implement the mining policy in the public interest, to make elaborate security arrangements and to arrest all the culprits at the earliest. CPI(M) district secretary Om Prakash and CITU leaders Satbir Singh, Suresh Kumar, Ram Mehar Singh, Anil Kumar, Sukhdev and Sadiq Dadam were in the delegation. The party will continue to fight till the government accept the demands.

SLOPPY POLICY LEADS TO FAULTLINES

It is worth noting that in 2019, HSSIDC(Haryana State Industrial and Infrastructure Development Corporation)  had allotted the contract of Dadam Pahari to Govardhan Mines and Minerals Private Limited for an amount of Rs 93 crore per annum for 10 years. The government is charging Rs 50 per tonne of stones separately as royalty. Earlier, the private company to which this contract was given, its contract was cancelled on the charge of illegal mining. Private companies, in alliance with corrupt politicians and mining mafia, did indiscriminate mining in this mountain and dug stones up to 800 feet below, keeping the mining policy aside, which made the whole mountain shabby.

According to the mining policy, batches were not made for the sake of safety and a 60-degree angle is used while mining in the mountain. For this, at first small paths are made in the middle of the mountain, which are called batches. Had the batches been deployed, the mountain would have broken and fallen on the second batch and the accident could have been avoided. But in mine numbers 37 and 38, where this accident happened, these safety rules were not observed while mining. In this area, 48 hectares of land is mined and 41 feet belongs to the forest department in number 32 of this area. The stone was broken by mining and 800 feet were excavated till the bottom, so the stone is said to have fallen from the area of the forest department. Illegal mining was being done in gross violation of mining rules and all this was being done with the connivance of the mining department and the district administration. This resulted in this accident and many labourers lost their lives.

In fact, the Dadam and Khanak hilly areas have very good quality stone and it is used to make gravel. Hundreds of crushers are engaged in this area. This raw material is used for building construction, making big pillars of roads and metros. Before 1996, the people around this area, in the absence of developed agriculture, used to earn their livelihood by mining on the mountains and cleaning the Nalasand (sand over the mines). Thousands of farmers and labourers from nearby 25-30 villages used to work here. When the price increased due to the rise in the market demand for the material produced from it, so did the profits. The HVP government of that time, under the leadership of Chaudhary Bansilal, gave the mountains on contract and due to the cost of crushers, pellets, there was dissatisfaction among the people and the workers.

Mines owners were seen snatching mines and there was a big movement against the contracting system. This movement was fought under the flag of Khanak Pahar Mining Mazdoor Union (affiliated to CITU). It was led by Prabhat Singh, Satbir Singh and Dharambir Kungad at that time. Serious cases were registered against the people of the area and hundreds of labour leaders by the police administration at the behest of the government. But under public pressure, the Bansi Lal government had to bow down the contracting system had to be stopped and the mountain was run by Khandars (local people who have been traditionally involved in mining work).

But in the year 2002, the INLD government of Chaudhary Om Prakash Chautala re-contracted these mountains and started collecting heavy taxes by putting up nakas in addition to heavy royalty. Again, a big mass movement arose against him and tax blocks were blown up. Hundreds of labourers were again charged with serious cases in which Prabhat Singh, Satbir Singh, Dharambir Kungad, Rakesh Malik and two other companions were also in jail for three months. The Chautala government brutally crushed that movement and looted more than Rs 800 crore from the mountain during its tenure. The robbery continued till March 2005.

After this, in the name of the environment, mining in the mountain was stopped till the year 2009 and the stone of Rajasthan started coming. Mining resumed in 2009 and was closed again on 28 February 2010. Then the mining was resumed in March 2012 and closed in 2016. In the year 2018, HSSIDC took them over and in 2019 gave them on contract to a private company. In this way, this area became a pasture of indiscriminate profits from the nexus of the mine mafia contractors and corrupt politicians. No attention was paid to the environment either. Accidents continued to happen with the labourers every day, but the matter was hushed up with meagre compensation.

The state government also continued to earn crores of rupees from these mountains, but no expenditure was made on this area. Even no hospital was opened for treatment in this area. To plant trees for the environment and keep the environment clean, the government did not spend any money. This alliance of mining mafia has created an atmosphere of fear and forgotten all the rules and regulations. The result of this is this accident in which five labourers lost their lives.