| When
Chhattisgarh almost happened in 1903 |
The Archives Addict |
Very
many of us are history buffs, especially after working for a Company with a rich heritage
such as Tata Steel. Its story has slowly but surely seduced us to the extent that we are
addicted to drinking in all we can find from its past. This page is dedicated to addicts
of the Archives!
Strange are
the events which lead to a discovery or
those that make or mar great enterprises. In 1903, Sir Dorabji Tata went to Nagpur to see
Sir Benjamin Robertson, then Chief Secretary of the Central Provinces Administration. The
gentleman in question happened to be out, so Sir Dorabji drifted aimlessly into the museum
opposite the Secretariat. There he came across a geological map of the Central Provinces,
printed in colour. He noticed that “Drug District” near Raipur was coloured
darkly in a hue, which meant to indicate large deposits of iron. He called Mr Weld who
recollected that he had seen some mention of the district in the reports of the Geological
Survey.
Sir Dorabji Tata and Mr Weld lost no time
and the latter accompanied by Mr Saklatvala went to the spot indicated on the map at
Dondi-Lohara.
For Weld, the whole district seemed full
of promising indications. Convinced that he should proceed further to succeed, he set out
in search of a village of iron smelters who worked with primitive furnaces. On asking
where they found their ore, the villagers took him to a hill about 300 feet high. As he
climbed the height, he was astonished to find that his footsteps rang beneath his feet.
Weld, to his astonishment, realised he had found a hill of almost solid iron!
Hurrying back to Nagpur at once, he
applied for a prospecting licence for the Dhalli and Rajhara hills, which was granted, in
due course.
On August 17, 1903, an officer in the
Deputy Commissioner’s Office of the Chhattisgarh Division, Mr F G I Phillips, wrote to
Mr Tata to say “Mr G W Smith had applied to the Deputy Commissioner of Raipur in
January or February for a mining lease with respect to small blocks in the Dhondi- Lohara
Zamindari...Your application has been sanctioned except with regard to priority of claim
to the surrounding hills; and you ought to receive official intimation to the effect from
the Deputy Commissioner very soon.”
But coal difficulty proved to be an
insistent and an obstacle to the iron & steel plants as ever. The pioneers had after a
careful survey decided on the “Jharia and Ranygunj coal fields of Bengal.” Water
was the other question and after a survey of the rivers of the Central Provinces, in the
dry season and during the rains, it was this one factor which made Mr Weld consider
setting up the works outside the area.
