Green preservation gets a thumbs down, as Lafarge project a livelihood issue.
Bnes Lingdar Lynghdoh is worried. For over two decades, the headman of Nongtrai, a nondescript village in Meghalaya's East Khasi Hills that borders Bangladesh, has led his people through an assortment of difficulties.
Just when he thought things were settled, stirrings elsewhere broke the calm. And, this time, Nongtrai is seemingly helpless.
Lynghdoh recalls a past of discernible hardship. Agriculture, the mainstay of the Nongtrai tribals, has failed repeatedly in recent years. The production of their primary cash crops — areca nut, black pepper and oranges — has been unreliable. Financial uncertainty, a reality unknown for long, has since stared them in the face more than once.
Driven by necessity and enterprise, Nongtrai decided to commercially exploit the most lucrative resource captive in their lands: limestone. With the help of local partners, the village scouted for firms to mine a square kilometre land-lot.
Effectively, the villagers of Nongtrai invited French cement major Lafarge SA to their lands. Mining firms, typically, approach the state government for mining rights, subsequent to getting the consent from land owners and the local community. Officials from Meghalaya’s mining department attest this was done.
Lafarge, then, joined hands with Spain’s Cementos Molins to create Lafarge Umiam Pvt Ltd (LUMPL) for mining the limestone, which would then be transported through a 17-km conveyor belt to the French firm's cement plant in Bangladesh.
LUMPL is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Lafarge Surma Cement, Bangladesh, which is a JV between Lafarge and Cementos Molins.
However, a group known as the Shella Action Committee (SAC) has taken legal action against Lafarge, primarily contending the wrongful mortgaging of tribal lands and adverse environmental impact of the project.
Consequently, the Supreme Court temporarily put a stay on all mining activities in the area by LUMPL and the matter is still being heard by the apex court. It is now up to the Union ministry of environment and forests to give conditional clearance to LUMPL for resumption of mining.
Limestone, the villagers of Nongtrai had hoped, would bring them a better life. Today, they find their dreams mired in a legal minefield and their future jeopardised by claims of people they brand as outsiders.
Households, which earlier earned between Rs 1,200-1,500 per month, are getting as much as Rs 6,000 per month from the “rent” paid by LUMPL, villagers said.
Standing at a vantage point near Nongtrai, Lynghdoh points at the hillside below. The thick forests of the East Khasi Hills gradually thin as the topography changes, and the hills of Meghalaya meld into the plains of Bangladesh.
At a cusp, between the dramatic change in geography, the limestone quarries of LUMPL emerge out of the foliage. From the quarries, a thread-like conveyor belt snakes its way above a few hillocks and into the flatlands of the neighbouring nation.
“There is more limestone below than cultivable land. Almost two-thirds of it is limestone. With whatever land there is, we can't grow anything because there is no water. Not even drip irrigation can be undertaken,” Lynghdoh asserted.
At Lafarge's quarries below, the truth of the headman's word are evident. Strewn with boulders, the core mining area has a negligible layer of top soil. Trees and bushes grow out of the soil that lies engorged in cracks and fissures that run through the rocks.
But, the SAC charges that the mining is being undertaken on virgin fertile land. The Committee's secretary, B M Roy Chyne, told Business Standard: “This is the land where previously oranges were grown. It is not rocky land.”
The composition of the SAC, however, is questionable as far as the Durbars of Nongtrai and Shella, the other village within the purview of the LUMPL project, are concerned. The Durbars are local democratic institutions that act as the highest-decision making bodies in the villages of this region.
“Though they call themselves Shella Action Committee (SAC), they are not staying in Shella village. They live comfortable lives in Shillong, even as we live here with our difficulties,” said a member of the Nongtrai Durbar.
Those from Shella were more scathing. “SAC is neither recognised nor recommended by the (Shella) Durbar. This is a small group, most of whom don't live in Shella or take part in the village affairs. We feel disappointed that when we are trying to benefit the whole villages, they (SAC) are opposing it,” an elder said.
However, it is the SAC's contention that the Durbars are supporting LUMPL only because they are being financially benefited. “We have the support of all the poor people,” claimed Roy Chyne.
When asked why local villagers were seemingly content with the financial windfall from the mining venture as agricultural production plunged, Roy Chyne said: “Now these people want easy money. They don't want to work. So, suddenly they make these excuses (about falling yields)”.
But, there are those who are coming back to Nongtrai to work. Baia Hun Lynghdoh, a young graduate from Shillong, left a promising position at a private school in Meghalaya’s capital to return to her village.
“There are many students here who drop out of school, and since I am from here, I feel it’s my responsibility to educate the children. I studied and worked in Shillong, but I am happy to be back,” said Lynghdoh, standing in the small room that is both the classroom and meeting room of the Durbar in Nongtrai.
In another small room by the hillside, a group of young women are attempting to weave away from a difficult past. Lucy Skhemlon Mary, 23, is one of them at the Nongtrai Weaving Training Centre, funded by the Meghalaya government and Lafarge. An agricultural labourer, with daily earnings of about Rs 50 till a few years earlier, she is now training as a weaver, with a monthly stipend of Rs 2,500. “It wouldn’t have been possible for us to convince the government to come here without Lafarge. If they go, maybe the centre will also have to close down. At the moment, I’m not earning any money from my weaving, but I have hope for my future,” said Mary.
Clearly, there is consternation in Nongtrai. “We had become a poor village but things have improved. We will become the victims if LUMPL shuts down,” said Testulos L Rapmai, the villages' religious head.
In many ways, the invitation to Lafarge was an attempt by the village of Nongtrai to take destiny into its own hands. Incidentally, in Khasi, the local tongue, Nongtrai means 'our own land'.