om e 's Ali a - Land ss De elo en - Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung, India Office

According to a survey conducted by
a doctor couple from Gujarat – Dr
Surendra and Sangharika Gadekar, who
write their findings in the magazine
‘Anumukti’ – instances of deformed
children being born in the region is
seven times more in comparison to the
normal situation. The couple also has
come out with startling figures with
respect to health status of the people of
the region.
As several private groups are
conducting a survey of health status
of the people of the region, the
Uranium Corporation of India Ltd
(UCIL) authorities also have come
under pressure. They have asked
Tata Institute of Social Science and
Indian Institute of Mines, Dhanbad
to conduct survey on the impact
of uranium mining on people. But
we fear that these institutions will
come out with figures that will be
far from the truth as countering the
figures projected by independent
organisations, seems to be the open
motive of the UCIL,” said Shri Prakash,
an internationally famed documentary
film maker of Jharkhand, who has
made ‘Buddha Weeps in Jadugora’,
the film that describes the plight of
villagers due to uranium mining.
The massive and negative impact of
uranium mining among villagers in
Impact of Aggressive Growth
the region is an open secret and the
situation becomes clear to anybody
who takes the trouble of visiting
the villages. But what is heinous
is that the UCIL does not accept
the gravity of the problem. “When
we asked UCIL chairman-cummanaging
director Ramendra Gupta
about health hazards in Jadugora
at a conference on environment
in New Delhi, he just got up and
left,” narrated Shri Prakash about
the irresponsible behaviour of the
topmost official of the company. The
conference took place on April 26-
27, 2007 and had been convened by
Centre for Science and Environment,
a Delhi-based NGO.
A survey and scientific testing of
samples from the soil and water in
and around Jadugora mines by Hiroaki
Koide of Kyoto University’s Research
Reactors Institute in July 2002, found
high radioactivity. The permissible limit
for radiation exposure by any ‘artificial
factor’ is one millisievert per year
(mSv/y), or 0.11 microSv/hr. In
Jadugora, there are places where
the external gamma dose by only
the ‘natural factor’ exceeds this
limit. The most dangerous source of
contamination lies in tailing ponds, and
here the amount of air-gamma dose
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