Lost lustre of
British-India's El Dorado
By Habib Beary
BBC correspondent in Kolar
Gold Fields
George Bastian and Ivor
Steiner, 73 and 70, look back with nostalgia to a golden age of opulent
colonial bungalows and endless dances in teak-floored ballrooms.
Dilapidated building
The town's colonial
buildings have seen better days
They say they saw the best
of times - convent schools, rubbish-free roads, uninterrupted electricity, skating
rinks and a party for every season - the Valentine Ball, Easter Ball, Summer
Ball and the Monsoon Ball, to name a few.
They lived in homes paid
for by the company - an 18-room dwelling for Mr Bastian, a slightly smaller one
for Mr Steiner.
But the good times
eventually left behind the mining town of Kolar Gold Fields, 100km from the
southern Indian city of Bangalore.
Mr Steiner and Mr Bastian
are now witnesses to the slow decline of the settlement once known as Chhota
England, or Little England.
Social unrest
The gold mines were started
by the British company, John Taylor and Sons, in 1880, when India was still
under British rule.
They ran it until 1956,
when the Indian government took control.
Disused mine
There is more gold left,
say workers - it just costs too much to mine
In 2001, the state-run
Bharat Gold Mines decided to close the site down in the face of mounting
losses.
Nearly 200,000 people lived
in Kolar Gold Fields - most of them dependent on the mines for their
livelihoods.
Official estimates say the
mines have spawned a gold flow of 800 tons over the last 100 years.
One of the mines, the
Champion Reef, was recognised as one of the deepest in the world - 3.2km below
the surface.
"They [the residents]
thought there will be gold forever," says the town's Superintendent of
Police, BNS Reddy.
"After the mines
closed, there is poverty, and unemployment. It has led to social unrest,"
he concludes.
