SAIL’S TOWNSHIP at PURANAPANI IS now A GHOST TOWN, BUT A NEW P-P-P PROVIDES NECESSARY HOPE OF REVIVAL BY Sutanu Guru
This small story must start start with a big thanks to Virbdhadra Singh, Union Minister of Cabinet for Steel. While planning this special issue on Nehru’s modern temples, we came up with a late idea of going to Rourkela, where the Nehru vision was fused with German engineering to create Rourkela Steel Plant, a key member of the Steel Authority of India (SAIL) family. A request sent to the minister’s office was processed as fast as you take to download a song from iTunes. And I had the opportunity of going to some places which most analysts and pundits talking and writing about SAIL and Rourkela Steel Plant usually tend to forget or ignore.
For me personally, it was the nth visit to the steel city, having gone there often during my school and college days in the 1970s and 80s when the word ‘Public Sector’ was something small town middle class Indians desperately wanted to be part of. Going down a mine shaft is a heady as well as scary experience; and you cannot avoid mines when you talk about steel. But more intriguing for me was a visit to a small place called Purunapani; a town, a hamlet, a desolate outpost of industrialization or harbinger of how public sector India is now rediscovering itself through strategic alliances with private sector companies and entrepreneurs.
“This mine was more than 60 metres deep. And limestone used to be sent from here to our plant and other places night and days”, says Jogeswar Badaik, Mines Manager, who is in charge of this outpost. Badaik is quintessentially middle class Indian; he has worked his way through to an office where he can press a buzzer that has a man come scurrying across to fetch tea and refreshments. He is worried about his child who is down with a flu; but he tells me confidently that the SAIL hospital in Rourkela can handle any problem. I am more interested in what were once upon a time mines that fed the industrial juggernaut in Rourkela.
We are driven a few kilometers to an embankment that oversees a massive lake with waters that look look really rippling and deep. The lake is really huge and Badaik says that it is actually 60 metres deep. According to him, an environmentally inclined academic from Delhi has planted hundreds of trees across the lake and persuaded SAIL to inject fish into the lake. Now, locals who were once working to send limestone are busy catching fish. There are smaller lakes that abound. I cannot help thinking how this absolutely beautiful place can be turned into a tourist paradise. But Badaik is nostalgic and a little despondent. There are crumbling conveyor belts and rusting machines that stand mute testimony to what was once a hub of industrial activity.
“ We started having serious labour problems almost a decade ago. By then, technology was changing and our steel plant was getting modernized. Around 2003, the management decided that the mines should be shut down,” says Badaik. They have stayed shut since then. In fact, on our way to Purunapani, we also crossed a hamlet called Hatibari. Around this place, Tata Steel had been operating a mine for decades. It is now a ghost place, with families enjoying the winter sun with their VRS packages. Near Hatibari, we witness a T-20 cricket tournament that has been organized by the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha. This place is just 3 kilomtres from the Jharkhand border and even local policemen avoid roaming around freely at night. I can’t help thinking: Was this what Nehru had dream about when German engineers had crafted this marvel back in the late 1950s? Prurunapani still has the typical government type houses with gardens that were really the Nehru legacy. There is also a big branch of the State Bank of India and a cooperative bank. But many houses look abandoned; their gardens overgrown with weeds. It is hard to imagine that this was once a thriving township where work on the mines happened round the clock. To give credit to SAIL, the hospital is still operational.
For me personally, it was the nth visit to the steel city, having gone there often during my school and college days in the 1970s and 80s when the word ‘Public Sector’ was something small town middle class Indians desperately wanted to be part of. Going down a mine shaft is a heady as well as scary experience; and you cannot avoid mines when you talk about steel. But more intriguing for me was a visit to a small place called Purunapani; a town, a hamlet, a desolate outpost of industrialization or harbinger of how public sector India is now rediscovering itself through strategic alliances with private sector companies and entrepreneurs.
“This mine was more than 60 metres deep. And limestone used to be sent from here to our plant and other places night and days”, says Jogeswar Badaik, Mines Manager, who is in charge of this outpost. Badaik is quintessentially middle class Indian; he has worked his way through to an office where he can press a buzzer that has a man come scurrying across to fetch tea and refreshments. He is worried about his child who is down with a flu; but he tells me confidently that the SAIL hospital in Rourkela can handle any problem. I am more interested in what were once upon a time mines that fed the industrial juggernaut in Rourkela.
We are driven a few kilometers to an embankment that oversees a massive lake with waters that look look really rippling and deep. The lake is really huge and Badaik says that it is actually 60 metres deep. According to him, an environmentally inclined academic from Delhi has planted hundreds of trees across the lake and persuaded SAIL to inject fish into the lake. Now, locals who were once working to send limestone are busy catching fish. There are smaller lakes that abound. I cannot help thinking how this absolutely beautiful place can be turned into a tourist paradise. But Badaik is nostalgic and a little despondent. There are crumbling conveyor belts and rusting machines that stand mute testimony to what was once a hub of industrial activity.
“ We started having serious labour problems almost a decade ago. By then, technology was changing and our steel plant was getting modernized. Around 2003, the management decided that the mines should be shut down,” says Badaik. They have stayed shut since then. In fact, on our way to Purunapani, we also crossed a hamlet called Hatibari. Around this place, Tata Steel had been operating a mine for decades. It is now a ghost place, with families enjoying the winter sun with their VRS packages. Near Hatibari, we witness a T-20 cricket tournament that has been organized by the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha. This place is just 3 kilomtres from the Jharkhand border and even local policemen avoid roaming around freely at night. I can’t help thinking: Was this what Nehru had dream about when German engineers had crafted this marvel back in the late 1950s? Prurunapani still has the typical government type houses with gardens that were really the Nehru legacy. There is also a big branch of the State Bank of India and a cooperative bank. But many houses look abandoned; their gardens overgrown with weeds. It is hard to imagine that this was once a thriving township where work on the mines happened round the clock. To give credit to SAIL, the hospital is still operational.
Source : IIPM Editorial, 2012.
An Initiative of IIPM, Malay Chaudhuri
and Arindam Chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist).
For More IIPM Info, Visit below mentioned IIPM articles.
Prof. Rajita Chaudhuri's Website
domain-b.com : IIPM ranked ahead of IIMs
Arindam Chaudhuri's Portfolio - he is at his candid best by Society Magazine
IIPM Best B School India
Management Guru Arindam Chaudhuri
Rajita Chaudhuri-The New Age Woman
IIPM's Management Consulting Arm-Planman Consulting
Professor Arindam Chaudhuri - A Man For The Society....
IIPM: Indian Institute of Planning and Management
IIPM makes business education truly global
IIPM B-School Detail
An Initiative of IIPM, Malay Chaudhuri
and Arindam Chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist).
For More IIPM Info, Visit below mentioned IIPM articles.
Prof. Rajita Chaudhuri's Website
domain-b.com : IIPM ranked ahead of IIMs
Arindam Chaudhuri's Portfolio - he is at his candid best by Society Magazine
IIPM Best B School India
Management Guru Arindam Chaudhuri
Rajita Chaudhuri-The New Age Woman
IIPM's Management Consulting Arm-Planman Consulting
Professor Arindam Chaudhuri - A Man For The Society....
IIPM: Indian Institute of Planning and Management
IIPM makes business education truly global
IIPM B-School Detail
