Jharkhand emerald mine gives Rs.35 lakhs to Maoist funds | Fusion - WeRIndia

Inside the deep pits on the mountain ridges of Gudabanda in Jharkhand, hundreds of tribal youth risk their life. They do this to hand over several rough green stones to an armed group of mine supervisors.

Many of these youngsters put in their hard work to mine emeralds here to hand them over to their supervisors. For doing such hard and dangerous work, they earn a little over Rs.100 which is the minimum wage one would get for working under a government employment guarantee scheme.

These miners have no idea how valuable the emeralds they dig up are. These stones can get Rs.3500 per carat (0.2 mg) after they have been cleaned and polished. The entirety of this mining operation is controlled smugglers patronized by Maoist rebels.

It is believed that the CPI earns more than Rs.200 crore every year from the illegal levies on mine owners. These rebels get around Rs.25 lakh to Rs.35 lakh every month from the emerald mines. Even the law enforcement looks the other way.

The Maoists have openly taken responsibility for this yet there is no action from anyone.

Attribution: Rob Lavinsky, iRocks.com – CC-BY-SA-3.0

Image Reference: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Grossular-20277.jpg