Taranagar:
The little town of Taranagar lies on the battered highway between Bellary and Sandur, in the iron-ore rich Sandur taluk. Around 5000 people live here - and every single family depends on mining for its livelihood. Taranagar sends out people as labourers, truck drivers, cleaners and supervisors.
So what do they do when mining comes to a complete standstill?
"Labourers, or people like us, whoever it is, it is becoming difficult to live for the last three months. The first two months we somehow managed but the last month it has come to the stage of our women have to sell their
mangalsutra for the families to survive. We don't have money to collect our ration. We don't have money to take our mother and father to the hospital," said Khaleel, a Taranagar resident. The uncertainty of the daily labourer and the casual worker is a sad reality of their life.
Now, over 200 full time employees of a nearby mine had also been told that they need not come to work from the following day - some after two decades on the job.
"I do sweeping, weeding, breaking stones in the mines - now they are saying from tomorrow there is no work. I have been working there for 20 years," said Nagamma, a worker at the mines.
"They are saying the mines are closed and there is no work. How do we earn a living? They have not told us why this has happened," said Gangamma, another worker at the mines.
Even during the daytime, the usual wage-earners have not gone anywhere - there is no work for them. There is anger and despair in the narrow lanes of Taranagar.
"Mining is the work here. We have to work hard in mining and eat. Nothing much grows here anyway. They have us assurances, took our land - gave us false assurances of jobs but they have just pushed us onto the streets - for their own political and money-making reasons," said Shivakumar, a supervisor at the mines.
There are many Taranagars around the district, waiting for things to get back to normal, for a time when the mining industry in Bellary is not mentioned in the same breath as scams, arrests, raids and multi-crore violations.