As you move from Jajpur town towards Sukinda in Jajpur district of Odisha, the fields turn parched and infertile. Rusty, dust-laden leaves wilt silently from dying trees. Trucks pass by, leaving a trail of chromite dust that never seems to settle down. The working classes are busy going to or returning from work; mining ores, lifting weights, occasionally taking long breaths to inhale the air that could kill them.
A board outside the chromite mines owned by TATA Steel, records and displays real time air quality monitoring. It’s difficult to read the figures through the haze but a research study published in May this year found 10-400 parts per million (ppm) total chromium in the air of Sukinda, way above the permissible limits of 0.1 ppm.
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