Itarsi Firing Range: Scavengers who face death to collect scrap

NK SINGH

Once, the tribal people of central India made their living by going daily into the jungle to collect wild fruit, nuts and roots. Now, much of the jungle in this remote hilly area has been cleared to make way for Ministry of Defence firing ranges. And the people have taken to a much more dangerous trade.

This time they are collecting mortar bombs and shells from the range's target area and selling them off as scrap. But so great is the competition among these impoverished, illiterate tribesmen for the metal that many are killed and many more maimed in the scramble to collect the shells.

The collectors, mostly teenagers and young men, but with some women among them, wait behind bushes and trees in the target area as the heavy mortars roar then dash forward to collect their prizes even before the smoke has cleared. Experience has taught them elementary ballistics so they usually know when the next salvo will strike. But sometimes they are tragically wrong.

Earlier this year seven collectors were killed in a salvo they did not expect. Others are killed when they pick up shells which have not exploded. They blow up with disastrous results when they are thrown on to open Lonfires to melt down the metal. More accidents occur when deeply buried shells are dug out of the earth with spades.

Police figures show an average of three or four deaths a year among collectors on the Central Proof Range at Itarsi. But unofficial sources say the real toll has been about 80 in the nine years the range has been in operation. They point out that because the collecting is illegal, victims are cremated quietly and no report is made to the police.

Indeed, a village called Chindapani (population 675), in the Kesala tribal development block where most of the collectors live, has come to be known as the Village of Widows. At one time there was not a single male in the village. All were killed while collecting bombs. Even now, there are many more women than men there.

The toll is worse near the 20-year-old Khamaria Long Proof Range, near Jabalpur (where the seven collectors were killed this year). Hundreds of people living near this range are believed to have been killed in the past two decades. 

Hardly a family in the area has not had at least one member killed or maimed by their dangerous trade. And again, the illegality adds to the risk. The collectors refuse to seek medical help if they are injured, for fear that the police will become involved, so many die from their injuries.

The tribal people make little money in exchange for the risks they take. For brass, they get Rs 10-Rs 12 (US$1.20- $1.40) a kilogram, copper Rs 15-83 18, aluminium Rs 5-Rs 7 and iron Re 1. 

But the middlemen who infiltrate the villages every evening with scales and gunny sacks to collect the loot make much more in the markets in the larger towns.

"The shell collectors are guilty," said Lt-Col G. K. Bali, commandant of the Central Proof Range at Itarsi, "but the real culprits are the traders and their political bosses." 

A millionaire businessman from Hoshangabad, the district headquarters, was arrested recently for possession of stolen goods from the range when a truckload of metal was seized by police. But most of the 32 people arrested last year for stealing government property were the smallest fry, the shell-collectors themselves. Most were boys between 10 and 12.

As well as the rich metal traders, the local state government is partly to blame for the situation, say sources. Although the Defence Ministry paid the Madhya Pradesh government compensation both to rehabilitate people displaced from jungle villages and for their development in future, little has been done.

"They promised us land but we never got it," says Ramachandra, a villager whose 20-year-old son, Ramial, has already lost one hand on the range.

And there is little chance of persuading the villagers to go to work and give up collecting shells. A state government minister visiting the area was told not long ago that wages paid to tribal people were as low as 25 paise (less than 0.5 US cents) a day.

Far Eastern Economic Review

September 18, 1978