Mine by proxy
a major mining scandal in Rajasthan's Jodhpur and Jaisalmer districts has been exposed in the past few months. Several cases have come to light of upper caste influential people fraudulently getting quarry licenses issued or renewed in the names of individuals belonging to the scheduled castes (scs), scheduled tribes (sts) and other backward castes (obcs). Many actual leaseholders are completely ignorant that they are official owners of quarries, and continue living in penury. Some know about it but can do little to change the situation.
Nemaram Meghwal's case is shocking. A resident of Gandero Ki Dhani village in Jodhpur district, he died fighting tuberculosis in September 1992, oblivious to his ownership of a quarry license. For most of his life, he worked as a labourer in Kaliberi sandstone quarries. That he owned a quarry license would perhaps have remained a secret, had a notice from the state's mining department not landed in his house in August 2004, informing his widow, Sujidevi Meghwal, that the lease had been cancelled. "I was shocked