Illegal mining casts shadow on Narmada politics in poll season

Narmadapuram: Five kilometres away from the office of the Naramadapuram superintendent of police, 52-year-old Dhanraj Raikwar works furiously at the Kharra Ghat, filling sand from the banks of the Narmada into a rickety trolley.

- Shruti Tomar

Raikwar and the men around him do this every day, but the method of operation varies according the position of the sun. When it is high in the sky, the banks are littered with 20 trollies across the sand banks. At night, the JCBs emerge. 

The mining is largely illegal and there is an elaborate system of checks -- spotters, and men on call to deal with prying eyes. Raikwar has been doing this for 31 years. “If the governments wants, it should stop it, and give me other work. Till then, what else can I do?”

Eight kilometres away, at the Karbala Ghat, the sight is similar: six trollies standing near the banks of the river; men shovelling sand from the banks that have barely any left. Rakesh Kevat, a local fisherman watches the mining forlornly from a safe distance. “My source of income used to be catching and selling fish. But these people have converted the river bed into barren land, but nobody says anything because it is these people who fund local political leaders,” Kevat says.

The Narmada and politics

The Narmada has always been central to the imagination of Madhya Pradesh, geographically India’s second largest state, and its politics. It was declared a living entity in May 2017, flows 1077 kilometres through the state and is a major source of water.

In December 2016, Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan began a 150-day yatra called the Narmada Seva Yatra across 65 constituencies and 15 districts that included a plantation drive, a cleanliness campaign, and the announcement of the ban on sale of liquor within five kilometres of the river.