Jharkhand bleeds

Dipankar Bose
The Statesman, 7 December

Since the creation of Jharkhand, the youngest state of the country, extremism unleashed by Maoist outfits has affected the state’s businesses and economy.

And the loss, which makes everyone pay hard, is when Maoists give calls for statewide bandhs to stress their agendas. Trade, commerce and industry in Jharkhand bleed during every bandh called by the Maoists and the statistics are overwhelming.

Jharkhand was created on 14 November, 2000. Records state that from that day till the third week of November this year, the state has witnessed more than 48 bandhs called by the Maoists. The business loss during these 48 bandh days is close to a whopping Rs 1.30 lakh crore!

The state finance department calculated the figure after considering the details from several industry and business sectors, functioning in Jharkhand. A state finance department official puts it this way ~ a bandh call, if considered to be a total success, means a loss of Rs 2,700 crore a day, in the form of approximate turnover loss from industries and smallscale units, besides manday losses.

The state finance department has based its calculations on the basis of Jharkhand’s gross domestic product. The state’s GDP is Rs 60,000 crore a month. Leaving aside the four Sundays and Saturdays, which are official holidays in the state, the number of working days a month is 22.
If the GDP is divided with the number of working days, the turnover comes to about Rs 2,700 crore for each day. The loss has been calculated by multiplying the number of days on which the Maoists had called bandhs and paralysed the state, with the turnover value for each day. The result ~ Rs 2,700 crore, when multiplied by 48 days, comes close to Rs1.30 lakh crore.

But this is not the end of the long list of losses in terms of economy. The second to come is the Railways, which has been hit by the Maoist bandhs. The East Central Railway (ECR) zone has one of the most profit-making divisions within its ambit ~ the Dhanbad Division. Freight loading and wagon handling done every day by this single division rings sweet bells for ECR coffers. And the section through which most of the freight trains of Dhanbad Division run is the Coal India Chord (CIC) Link. Most of the CIC Link of Dhanbad Division passes through areas of Jharkhand, which are considered by the state police and Union home ministry as the Core Red Corridor.

That means the trains, both passenger and freight, pass everyday under the shadow of assault rifles and explosive devices of the Maoist extremists. As soon as a bandh call is given by the extremists, the first thing that the ECR authorities do is to suspend trains in the CIC section.
That means no loading of wagons along the busy section and no running of goods trains, resulting in unnecessary delays and bunching of rakes in the yards. The situation is more or less the same in the South Eastern Railway network area, in the Ranchi and Kharagpur Divisions and also parts of the East Coast Railway. The routine cancellation of passenger and freight trains only indicate that the Railways has virtually surrendered to the Maoists’ diktat. The Railways suffers losses that run into crores of rupees when trains are suspended along various sections of the ECR, the SER and other zones, where Maoists have a strong presence.

And senior Railway officials only say that they are helpless. “We are helpless during the Maoist bandhs. We have had a series of meetings with the Jharkhand chief secretary, home secretary and the state’s director-general of police. Senior officials of Ranchi and Dhanbad Divisions and also senior officials of the East Coast Railway attended the meeting to review railway security during these bandhs.

“We urged the state police to provide adequate security cover to the Railways so that trains can ply. Every time we got assurances from the state government authorities about security, but on bandh days, all assurances fall apart,” a senior SER official said. Maoists have always targeted the Railways during their bandhs.

During the bandh of 24 September, the extremists blew up the Kajrat-Nawadih station on the Garwah Road-Dehri-on-Sone section. Tracks were blown apart in the Koderma section of the busy Howrah-Delhi Grand Chord route, suspending trains running for long hours. Railway officials estimate that on an average, the ECR Division loses more than Rs 10 crore if train services are suspended on any day along the CIC section. The losses just keep mounting as the Railways practically surrenders to Maoists during bandhs. Passengers and transporters using the Railways are the worst sufferers. These bandhs also hit the operations of the Jharkhand State Mineral Development Corporation-owned coal projects, CCL’s mining projects in the collieries and Hindalco’s Tori bauxite sidings, creating further dents in the state’s coffers.

With little control of the state government over thriving Maoist extremism in Jharkhand, everyone is at their mercy ~ from the masses to the state exchequer.

(The author is The Statesman’s Ranchi-based principal correspondent.)