The KOLAR GOLD FIELD

The story begins in the year 1871 British retired officer Michael Lavelle shifted to Bangalore (India). He was serving in New Zealand. After his retirement, he was enjoying his retirement life, but days passed on to divert from his boring life. He started reading books, he spent more than 12hrs in a day reading books.When he finished reading all the collection of books, he changed to reading newspaper. One day while reading an old newspaper, he found a journal which was published 67 years ago. His curiosity was on 4 pages of his journal. It was related to Lt. John Byron report. It was about a place which included his findings. When he completed reading the journal he was shocked and realized that his lazy retirement days were going to end and he started a new mission - SHINING DWAN. The report was written 67 years ago. Behind the report there is a thrilling story. The Srirangapattana Battle was going between Tippu Sultan and the British. In the battle, Tippu lost his life. Later British rulers handed over the conquered places to the Mysore royal family. Before handing over the area, the measurements had to be done, so government assigned the job to John Byron, he arrived in Kolar for the assigned job. After a few days after starting the work, he heard the story of the existence of gold in Kolar soil.But he didn't take it seriously. He continued his job. Once he visited a British office in Madras, he came to hear a story of Kolar. While returning on the way, he was thinking about the story and its popularity. His curiosity about the story of Kolar Land kept on increasing. After reaching the Kolar as the first step, he offered the reward for proving the existence of yellow metal in the soil. This reward news was spread like a forest fire, but the result was nil. John Byron completed his assigned job, he planned to return on next day. Next morning, he woke up with a door knock sound. When he opened the door, he saw a few villagers with bullock carts fully loaded with soil and John took hand full of soil and washed with water. He was shocked! it was GOLD. He came to know that Kolar was hiding gold in it.John started several studies and gold experiments. As the first step, he marked places on the map which had a chance of high gold deposits. And the findings were published in the newspaper and they started GOLD mining. They started calling it as KOLAR GOLD FIELD (KGF).As the mining was going on they came to know that the gold deposits were deep under ground. And deep underground mining started. There were regular accidents, they kept on increasing.Finally, it came in front of the government.The government ordered them to stop underground mining in Kolar Gold Field. After completing the reading of John Byron report, Lavelle started the primary investigation into Kolar Gold Field.In his investigation, he found many suitable areas for mining.He wrote a letter to the Mysore government stating the permission for mining in Kolar, but the Mysore government rejected his request. Lavelle didn't quit. He took different ways to convince the government. Finally, after a long wait, the government approved the permission for mining. Lavelle took Kolar Gold Field lease for 20 years .As the mining started, the British government built India's first hydro power plant in Kolar. And in Indian history, when kings and rulers used oil lamps, the Kolar was using electicity for light. But the worker's living conditions were very bad. They used to work at 55 degrees Celsius in underground mining.It resulted at regular accidents and, due to continuous mining, the amount of gold deposits started decreasing and required further deep mining to find gold deposits. It was not safe to work further deeper, as under safety precaution government issued's the order to close the Kolar Gold Field on 2001.KGF played important level in India's development and was the Asia's biggest gold mine. But there are still gold deposits hidden under Kolar Gold Field.