15 March,2026 09:40 AM IST | Mumbai | Tanisha Banerjee
Children of both employees and nearby villages study together for free
During independence, India was 80 per cent rural. Seventy-seven years later we are still 64 per cent rural. About 900 kilometres from Mumbai, lies the small, abandoned rural district of Gadchiroli. It consists of 1688 villages which have been forgotten under the shadow of Maoism. For decades development stayed away. Seventy per cent women bled in silence without sanitary napkins. Many never reached hospitals to give birth, trusting custom over care, often at a fatal cost. Here, life offered three exits: farming, leaving home behind, or picking up a gun.
In 2020, B Prabhakaran looked at Gadchiroli's red soil and saw not just iron ore, but a district waiting to be reintroduced to itself. Under his leadership at Lloyds Metals and Energy Limited, development arrived village by village - 25 of them - through meals cooked daily, outreach workers knocking on doors, and conversations that challenged decades of silence around health, work, and dignity. Skill centres replaced surrender camps. "The real issue was not security, but lack of opportunity," he says. His approach was to "invest not just in minerals, but in people," building healthcare, schools and skills before expanding mining. "If the people are with us, we are moving in the right direction," he adds. Maoism faded as livelihoods took root. Gadchiroli remains rural, aspirational, and uneven but it has hope.
64 per cent
of India is rural 77 years after India's independence
In Hedri, mornings begin with unreasonably big smiles. Inside this hushed settlement stands a proposed CBSE school where education arrives without a bill attached. Free for the children of employees and neighbouring villages, it holds 1020 students till Grade 10. Some arrive by bus from deep interior villages, others stay in hostels guarded by security filtered through psychometric analysis. The children are impossible to miss as they greet every passerby. As Sunita Mehta, project director, says, "Our vision is to make education an equaliser in a completely underserved region." Local teachers were trained from scratch, and children were taught not just lessons, but how to carry themselves - habits that travelled back into their homes.
Not far away stands the district's only advanced hospital with its first MRI scan machine. "People from Chhattisgarh and Telangana come here now," says the hospital's senior medical superintendent Dr Gopal Roy, "because care is free and accessible." Started in 2023, the hospital continues to expand with units for gynaecology, cancer treatments and OPDs.
At Konsari, the pellet plant hums with machinery and second chances. Tucked within it is a skill development centre meant for those who once lived outside the law - surrendered Maoists. After surrender, and through coordination between Prabhakaran and the local government, they are placed under protocols, trained, and absorbed into work across the plant. More than 80 now work here. They are no longer just employees. They are shareholders as well.
For women, the past is especially heavy. Many were pushed into street plays, singing, and dancing - tools of recruitment disguised as culture. Their bodies were controlled too. Tubal sterilisation ensured they would not form attachments, slow down, nor belong anywhere. They walked endlessly, ate poorly, and never settled. Today, many have undergone medical reversals. They have children. Homes. Documents. An identity.
Ramji Majji, now almost 40 and working as a bar bender, spent 10 years as a Maoist. Being imprinted early in his age, it took him a long time to grasp his reality. "I joined the party [Maoists] in school. At first it felt right. Later, I saw the elders - no home, no money, no life. I was in the military where I taught joinees how to use guns. I was involved in firing as well.
We were told we were fighting for freedom, but nothing came of it. I regret losing 10 years. Leaving was the best decision. Nothing good happens there. Only death on both sides." Across the plant works Karuna Suresh Padar, 30, quiet and precise. She joined Maoists at 16. "It gave me power for a short time," she says. "Women are told to move from one house to another. And joining the party felt as an escape from that drudgery. My tubes were tied as soon as I joined the party. I didn't understand any of it. But not for long. I wanted my own life. When I finally saw a way out, I ran." Padar has been working in the mechanical department for the past one year. "It's a good life," she smiles subtly.
Now they all hope to uplift their lives and themselves through a structured lifestyle.
Gondwana's skill centre became a crossing point for vilagers from fear to choice. They were taught mining skills, yes, but also employable ones they could carry anywhere. Transport was arranged for those travelling from Maoist-prone belts. For many, it was the first risk taken for hope, not survival. Each employee received 100 company shares giving them an importance.
Vikas Pungati, 25, is from Hindur village near Chhattisgarh's border, where the towering threat of Maoists was a constant terror. Pungati remembers going to school while hiding. "Taking up work scared me. Maoists gave us nothing but pressure. When the police and local leaders backed us, the threats stopped."
Vanita Vinod Naroti, 32, sarpanch of 15 villages in Todsa taluka, speaks of change rooted in income. "Earlier, women farmed and stayed home. Men decided everything, even childbirth. Hospital visits were refused." Sickle cell disease, malaria, malnutrition were common as villagers held no concept of money, farming being their bread and butter while markets were unheard of. "After steady work, food habits changed, health improved, and women began to speak," says Naroti.
Employment didn't just end Maoism. It also made it unnecessary.
At Surjagarh, the earth is cut open carefully. This is where iron ore is mined but it does not feel like a place that only takes. Every worker here comes from the villages that circle the hills. They are fed, housed when needed, and ferried to work. The mine bends itself around people, not the other way around.
Surjagarh practises green mining where electric vehicles hum instead of roar, water sprays hang constantly in the air to keep dust down, and carbon footprints are measured, not ignored. Women operate machines once thought too large for them.
Of the 3500 odd employees here, skill is the only qualification that matters.
Because operators did not exist locally, they were moulded. Villagers are trained from scratch, paid stipends while learning, and supported with free transport, schooling, and hospital care - benefits that spill beyond employees to neighbouring villages. Education, too, travels far from here. Twenty-five students from Gadchiroli, selected on merit, are sent to study mining engineering in Australia - Rs 1.05 crore invested per student. Three batches have already left, carrying a district's expectations with them.
On site, 104 women are currently training to operate heavy moving vehicles. Seven already do. One of them is Pratibha Madavi, 36, a mining truck driver. "I like driving. My husband works here too. It pays well and it's fun. I never thought I could do this as a woman," she says, smiling shyly. At Surjagarh, progress is slow and steady like a loaded truck driven by someone who once never imagined she'd be behind any wheel.
. The district is currently a part of the Red Corridor, in the eastern, central and southern parts of India where the Naxalite-Maoist insurgency has the worst and the strongest presence.
. The local languages spoken here are Gondi and Madia apart from Marathi.
. Despite being a dry district, local alcohol or the local Mahua is a central part of cultural celebrations in the district, especially in the interior villages.
Till five years ago, when Maoism was rampant in the district, Gadchiroli's people did not take up guns for the sake of it. Apart from lack of employment, the district was riddled with poverty. Villagers had no idea about the concept of money nor the Internet. Food came from backyard farming, which was never fully nutritious or filling. No masalas were used either. The backwardness here was a result of being invisible to the system. It's the complete sense of abandonment and desperation for decades which had pushed Gadchiroli into the pits of violence.
