Mancherial district prone to pollution by opencast mines

Srirampur opencast mine in Adilabad

The new district Mancherial is more prone to pollution due to opencast mines and industries of ceramic in the area.

The soil removed from opencast mines piled up at various places in the coal belt areas and causing health problems in Srirampur, Mancherial, Mandamarri , Kasipet, Thandur, Rebbena and Goleti areas under all the five opencast mines which are now part of Mancherial district to be named after Adivasi legendary Kumram Bheem.

The opencast mines Srirampur, Ramakrishnapur, Dorli I and II, Khairiguda are functional. New opencast mine Kalyanikhani at Erraguntapalle in Manadamarri was proposed.

Singareni Collieries Company Limited (SCCL) has conducted surveys for new opencast mines at various places in Asifabad and Sirpur (T) Assembly constituencies. Singareni is planning to establish opencast mines near Movvad and Jodeghat area.    

    

On the other hand, coal ash emerges as a by-product of the thermal power project established at Jaipur mandal in the Mancherial district being created.

A large number of people have already suffered from respiratory health problems including asthma and lung problems with the existing opencast mines. The Singareni is planning new opencast mines in the area which comes under the Mancherial district.

The temperatures are high in the coal belt area as the coal gets heat during the summer and people experience highest temperatures.

Comparatively, the temperatures are low in Adilabad and Nirmal with the huge forest cover and no opencast mines and industries emanate pollution. These two places are now being carved out as new districts.

Villagers of Erraguntapalle have been agitating for long time opposing the opencast mining coming up in their village in Mandamarri.

One can see the piled up soil looks like hills causing pollution in the area and opencast mines resulted in the drastic fall in the ground water, sinking tanks, hitting the agriculture, drinking water problem and losing fertile agriculture lands in addition to the health problems.

The opencast mines also cause displacement of Adivasis from their traditional habitat that is forest areas and creates unrest among them by making them laborers.

Safe drinking water a luxury

Atram Pullabai of Chapral

Drinking safe water (borewell) is cause for celebration for the Adivasis of interior areas where there is a drastic fall in the ground water table due to successive droughts in the Adilabad district.

The ground water table has gone down 7.81 meters in November, 2015 when compared to 7.16 meters in the corresponding period of 2014. It means -0.65 meters water table was depleted in the Adilabad district.    

Adivasis are now fetching water from streams, rivulets and drinking wells by walking long distances and majority of these water sources are on the verge of drying up while majority of bore wells were already dry in the district.    

People in general and Adivasis in particular have already experiencing severe drinking water shortage due to prolonged drought conditions in the district and this situation may become worst as summer fast approach.

On the other hand, most of the drinking water schemes have become defunct in the villages and Adivasi gudems due to minor repairs and drinking polluted water causing health problems for the people.      

Adivasis of a few interior gudems like Chapral save water available in the lone borewell fixed with a tap which gives only three buckets of waters every and they extract water one in a while from that borewell to offer that water to relatives when they visit their village or during the festivals. 

The remaining days, Adivasis of village drink muddy water fetched from streams and rivulets. Chapral village is just 7 km from Utnoor headquarters and ITDA office. 

Atram Pullabai of Chapral in Utnoor mandal said ‘villagers are collecting water from deserted well and also local streams and rivulets and using the same water drinking and bathing purposes’.

‘Every day she could hardly fetch only three buckets of water from the local stream and there is huge demand for this water as most of the villagers depend on the same stream and have to put their buckets in a queue waiting for their turn for hours together’, she said.

Mesram Nagorao of the Chapral said ‘they hardly get two or three buckets of water every day from lone borewell tap as ground water table gone down deep due to prolonged drought conditions. They take water once in a week from borewell to give water to their relatives when visit their village or use the borewells water during the festivals and any other celebrations’.He said they used the water collected from the borewell tap during Gussadi festival recently. 

For the last few days the borewell motor is not operational as the electric wire got damaged and few villagers got low level electric shocks while collecting water from the tap and children are at great risk.

ITDA staff fixed the inadequate electric wire and connected to electric motor. Villagers removed the electric wire from the tap to avoid incidents of electric shocks as children were playing around the tap’, said Nagorao.   

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