In the illegal gold mines in the remote Devala-Pandalur region of the Nilgiris, the mining and extraction of the precious metal is fraught with danger, but it goes on nevertheless. Lack of jobs and the rich returns drive locals to risk their lives for a fistful of gold dust.
Amongst the miners, a small group of entrepreneurial pit bosses has emerged. One such is Faisal, who worked for over two decades in West Asia. He now ‘owns’ five mines, including the one where the much talked about ₹10 crore find was made. “We uncovered a 200 g nugget from within the same mine,” Mr. Faisal exclaims proudly.
He now plans to buy a gold-detecting machine on one of his trips abroad. “Once we get the machine, there won’t be any need for guess work,” he says with confidence.
Mr. Faisal not only owns the mines, but also provides food and financial help to the miners, along with equipment to help extract the gold. In return, he gets a share from the miners when they uncover substantial deposits.
A ready market
The gold is said to be highly valued by jewellery manufacturers. Most of the miners separate gold from the ground-down sand using the process of sluicing — where the ground-down rock, along with the gold flakes, is washed along a stream bed. Mercury is also used to separate the precious metal.
According to the miners, jewellery manufacturers and middlemen pay them anywhere between ₹1,000 to ₹1,500 per gram of extracted gold.
“The gold we mine is of extremely good quality,” says Prajeeth, stating that bigger jewellery manufacturing companies can expect to double their investment during the final sale of the finished item to the customer.
Selling the gold is quite easy too, he adds. There are many middlemen in Devala and the surrounding towns who are more than happy to buy it off the miners and sell it to manufacturers both in Tamil Nadu and Kerala.
Mr. Faisal joins the miners in the evening. He has the reputation of being a strongman, having once roughed up Forest Department and police personnel when caught hunting a monitor lizard, a protected species. The miners openly confess to hunting game, including wild boar, monitor lizards, deer, fruit bats and hares. Snares laid to trap wildlife are a common sight.
Mr. Faisal sees himself as an entrepreneur and job creator. “Because of the mines, hundreds of people have work. The Forest Department and the police cannot stop us from going in because most of Devala town is dependent on the gold,” he says.
Local shopkeeper, S. Rathinam, estimates that four out of every 10 families in town are in some way dependent on the mines for a living.
“In Devala, there are no jobs, very few farms and the plantations don’t provide enough jobs. We don’t attract tourists either. So most people either own shops, or work the mines,” he adds.
The lack of employment is one of the reasons why the mines have become so important to the locals, including a large population of Sri Lankan repatriates.
Lakshmi, 62, who works the mines with her husband and two grown children, says she came to Devala when she was 11. “After struggling to work in the tea estates, we finally started working in the mines, which has allowed me to get my children educated, and my daughters married,” she says.
Explaining the economics behind the dangerous work, she says the only form of employment open to casual labourers is in the tea and coffee estates.
“A few months back, we decided to give up mining because it is so dangerous. We then started working in an estate in Kalhatti, where we were asked to pick coffee pods. Every week, I would make maybe ₹1,500 during the picking season, while during the off-season, we would be asked to collect coffee pods from the ground, which would fetch us less than ₹1,000 a week for really hard work,” she says. “So the risk of going into the mines is offset against the possible returns,” she adds.
Death in the pits
And risky it certainly is. Most miners know of people who died in cave-ins and falls inside the mines.
“Most of the time, the news doesn’t really get out, and most people accept that these accidents do occur,” says Faisal, who estimates that up to 15 people could have died in the mines over the past five years.
“The miners have a saying here — either you live long enough to die inside the mines, or come out a rich man,” says Mr. Prajeeth, concurring that deaths in the mines are often not reported to the authorities.
All names in the report have been changed to protect the identity of the miners.
