Koderma

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Gayday Iron & Steel Company, Hirodih

As in 2024

ASRP Mukesh & Manoj Kumar TNN, May 19, 2024: The Times of India

Koderma : On the outskirts of Jharkhand’s Koderma town, a defunct iron factory stands abandoned and corroded, greeting visitors at the entrance of Hirodih, a dusty and sleepy settlement of four villages next to a forgotten legacy. Thousands of residents of Hirodih swing between hope and despair every election, as their demand to revive the plant, once owned by Tibetan spiritual leader and Nobel Prize winner, the Dalai Lama, getting them promises and assurances from candidates seeking votes every time, only to be forgotten after the polls.


After the Buddhist monk crossed into India from Tibet in the 1950s, he set up this plant, spread over 350 acres of land bought from the villagers for Rs 4 crore in 1960, and named it Gayday Iron & Steel Company. 
The only venture owned by the Tibetan spiritual leader, the factory was a major avenue for employment in the region. But, more than four decades since its closure, hopes of its revival have only diminished due to half-baked attempts, failed promises and administrative apathy, turning Koderma into a migration-prone region.
 Jung Bahadur Singh, who is now in his late 70s, was among the first employees of this factory. He continued to be on the rolls even when the factory’s ownership kept changing hands, but the jobs continued to shrink owing to a lack of proper patronage to run the factory. The septuagenarian lives in Gamarwad village, one of the four villages where people voluntarily gave up their lands for the factory, hoping it would usher in prosperity for generations to come.


Talking to TOI in his shanty, Singh recalled the hum of machines churning out world-class spun iron pipes. “Hirodih became the plant site on the advice of then PM Jawaharlal Nehru. The land acquisition began in 1960 and production started in 1968. But, the plant was shut in 1976 owing to financial issues and poor recordkeeping, and ran into a legal tangle,” he reminisced.


Other old-timers main- tained that the Dalai Lama gradually lost control of the factory, and the site thereafter went for a govt auction. An association of 500-plus workers moved court against it. In 1982, Supreme Court directed the then govt of undivided Bihar to transfer the plant to Bihar Industrial Development Corporation (BIDC) for its revival, with a rider that “this land must only be used for industry”, Singh maintained. However, BIDC’s attempts didn’t yield much results.


“After the formation of Jharkhand, many promised its revival during every election, but to no avail,” said Singh. Between the late ’80s and early ’90s, the factory was renamed Magadh Spun Pipes Pvt Ltd and operated on a public-private partnership mode till the late 2000s, but production halted thereafter. 
Currently, the sealed facto- ry’s fate is pending before National Company Law Tribunal for over a decade owing to multiple claims of ownership.


Caretaker and cook at the factory guesthouse where the Dalai Lama often visited, 80-year-old Tusi Rezi, hoped she would get to see people working in the factory again. “Before I die, I want to see this factory in its old glory,” she said in a frail voice.


Another elderly villager, Nageshwar Singh, said salaries of many workers were still due. “It was due to emotional sentiments attached to the plant and the Dalai Lama that many kept working even when he had given up its ownership long back,” he remarked. “Even though the factory remained defunct, the villagers here ensured that its assets were preserved and unharmed, hoping that someday it would change our fortunes,” he added.


Nageshwar’s two sons work as migrant workers in Mumbai. He said for years, the locals pursued the matter with MPs and MLAs in different govts to help revive this factory, but the efforts met with little success.
 There’s little indication that the fortunes of the factory, or of Hirodih, will see any sudden change after the current elections either. But, villagers have no option but to keep their hopes alive.