The road that leads to Komorrah Limestone Mining Company (KLMC) through Sohbar village is better not steered as it may evoke a fear for adventure in the traveller. The pebbly and broken road (calling it a road is an overstatement) twists down the hill like a creeper around a huge tree trunk. A few metres from the arch bridge on the Wahrew river and a long queue of trucks carrying limestone, allegedly illegally mined, makes the way narrower. The Komorrah mining site is almost at the end of the road and one can identify it from a distance by the decades-old ropeway. A small black signboard reads, ‘Welcome to KLMC quarry’, written in white.
“It was no fun, this trip to Komorrah (in December, 1974), and yet, when we did reach Komorrah, all our pain and agony were over and I felt like stepping into a dreamland and an era of promise,” wrote AK Bose, former director, in a jubilee souvenir of the company.
Indeed, it is not fun as the journey remains as tedious as it was more than three decades ago. It is also not a dreamland that one would imagine. But the mine definitely rouses interest and curiosity.
Shampari Warjri, a local who has been working in the office at the mine site for 33 years now, says this is one of the oldest companies in the state and her parents too were part of it. “Komorrah mining has provided jobs to so many locals over the years. It belonged to a Bengali who was a good person and took care of the staff. I have seen the best of days and I have seen the worst,” she says in Bengali as the sirens, the blasts and the earthshaking sound of the broken rocks rolling down the slopes make conversation difficult.
What makes the mining company, which was established in 1973, unique is its mode of transportation of the mined limestone to a cement factory in Bangladesh, Chhatak Cement in Sylhet, with the help of the 17-km aerial ropeway.
The limestone deposits of the Komorrah area were under lease to the erstwhile M/s Assam Bengal Cement Company since 1939, which operated the limestone quarries and supplied limestone to Chhatak Cement. However, the quarries ceased to operate in 1965 following the Indo-Pakistan conflict. It started again after the liberation of Bangladesh and Chhatak Cement remained the client.
The limestone mine was once a captive mine of Chhatak Cement Factory, which is run by Bangladesh Chemical Industries Corporation of the government, and both were under the same management. But after the Indo-Pakistan war, the arrangement changed. In 1972, an Indo-Bangladesh joint group decided that while a mining enterprise would be established to undertake quarrying operations at the Komorrah mines in Bholaganj of the newly formed state of Meghalaya, the ropeway would be owned by the cement factory.
Half of the shares of the mining company, till 2015, was owned by Meghalaya Industrial Development Corporation (MIDC) and the other half by Economic Entrepreneurship Development Foundation, Kolkata-based Development Consultants Ltd, Development Investors Ltd and SC Dutt and Associated (Engineers) Pvt Ltd. The main office of the mining company is in Shillong. In 2015, Singapore-based Misha PTE bought 50 per cent shares and the remaining continued to be held by MIDC.
With time KLMC became a reason for the new northeastern state to be proud of.
“KLMC is more than a corporate entity. With the passage of time it has virtually become an institution in Meghalaya reflecting the positive and dynamic values embodied in the operations of a cooperative economic venture between the state government and the private sector on the one side and also between the countries,” former chairman SK Srivastava wrote in the 25th jubilee souvenir of the company in 1998.
According to former director of mineral resources O Basaiawmoit, there was “no detailed geological reports of these deposits”. So that became the top priority for the newly formed state and in 1973, a survey on .36 sqkm said there was 14.27 million tonne of limestone deposit, which would last 50 years (2023) with a production of 2 lakh tonne per year. According to an official at the mine site, not many surveys were conducted at the mine and as per the last data, the reserves stand at 40 million tonne.
“The limestone here is of the best quality, what we call flux grade limestone that has 52 per cent calcium carbonate content,” says the expert at the site. This makes the limestone suitable for steel, calcium carbide and other chemical industries.
The mining company had 20-year lease agreement with the state government to mine limestone over 240.55 hectares at Komorrah, which falls under Sohbar Sirdarship. But after 2015, the lease period was increased to 50 years following an amendment in the MMDR Act.
KLMC always had a unidimensional entity — single product, single consumer and a single mode of transportation of the finished product — and the ropeway. This still continues.
Mining was done manually from the beginning of operations till 1994 when the mines were partially mechanised with the introduction of a loader and tipper trucks for transportation of limestone from the mine faces to the ropeway bunker. Even to this day, many things like breaking the limestone are done manually. Workers hang precariously on the limestone walls for drilling. “This is an archaic way of working and can cause accident any time,” says the official at the site.
At the company’s office, an Assam-type building in Upper Lachaumiere, S Paul was generous enough to provide KLMC’s silver jubilee souvenir for a peek at history.
Described as “a jewel in the crown of Meghalaya”, a writeup in the souvenir points out that KLMC had a distinct disadvantage of dealing with a single buyer. “There were several attempts to develop more customers but unfortunately the efforts could not succeed given the distance of the quarry from the so-called market. Road being the only connection to the hinterland, with rising fuel prices it is difficult for the company to compete with others,” the souvenir read.
This drawback still remains as there has been little or no development of the road. Nothing has come out of its efforts to get road permission, says the official at Komorrah. AK Choudhuri, former deputy general manager of MIDC, had aptly pointed out in his article in the souvenir that for better performance, KLMC needed more buyers in the domestic market and abroad so as to have its edge.
The company sells limestone at $12 per tonne.
While for many years, the mining company was a profit-earner, it is bearing the brunt of time and competition in the recent years. The official says production last financial year was 59,000 tonne and the company is incurring losses.
The dilapidated infrastructure is adding to the woes.
The ropeway, which is maintained by Chhatak Cement, was last modernised in 1995. There are around 200 buckets, each 700kg capacity. Though there had been demand for modern machines, fund crunch has remained a hurdle.
“The company lost much of its money while trying to invest in horticulture locally. But the place is too remote for marketing the products and the plan fell flat,” says the official, adding, “Most of the mine workers here are poor locals but those who are retiring are not getting their provident fund. So others are also reluctant to work sincerely.”
There are 102 mine workers, 10 of whom are on contract. The official says the workers’ grievances should be addressed immediately for smooth running of the mine and then investing in basic facilities can be contemplated.
Also, as Chhatak Cement plans to switch to dry process, its demand for limestone has also gone down.
The company, for decades, has played an important role in uplifting the economic and social conditions of the locals, besides making a niche for it in the mining sector of the state. What it needs is modernisation, maintenance and diversification. It is a jewel much of whose radiance is lost over time. “But it is not impossible to turn it around. The knots have to be smoothened and we can try,” said the official at the mine.
~ Nabamita Mitra
(The old photographs of the
mine have been provided by
the company)