- Since mines were shut in Kolar Gold Fields in 2001, the town has received neither electricity nor water regularly. There are barely any toilets and people can be seen defecating in the open.
- Hillocks of toxic residue, locally called cyanide hills, stand tall in Kolar. The untreated toxic waste ends up contaminating land, air and water, causing harm to the health of the local people.
- The government rules require the mine operator, which was a government company in this case, to restore the mine area. These norms have been ignored so far.
“It was once called mini England and the KGF was the first Indian city to be electrified in 1902. The British government had also built a lake to meet the water demands of the area. When the mine was operational, the area didn’t experience any power cuts and water shortages. But now, after the gold has finished the area has lost its glitter too as there is neither proper electricity supply nor drinking water,” Esavel told Mongabay India.
The laborers who used to work in these mines live in poverty without any financial and health aid from the government. Residents live in shanties smaller than 100 square feet in over 400 colonies. The living conditions in those colonies are very poor as well as people don’t have access to proper toilet facilities and there are open drains in the colonies for wastewater which ends up triggering a host of communicable diseases. About 260,000 people still live in the Kolar Gold Fields.
Kalai Arasan, a resident of the KGF’S Mill Colony, informed that there are only five public toilets and nearly 2,500 inhabitants rely on them. She claimed that all the men and more than half of the women defecate in the open. “The local municipality didn’t pay heed to the several complaints made by the residents demanding proper toilet facilities, she mentioned. When the toilets weren’t cleaned for over a year, the residents started cleaning them because they feared a disease outbreak,” Kalai told Mongabay-India.
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