Sanjay Dutt, Raveena Tandon and Prakash Raj are playing key roles in KGF-2 starring Kannada hero Yash.
This is mainly Kannada cinema. The first part of KGF was released in 2018 in Kannada, Hindi, Telugu and many other languages and became a super hit. Audiences have been waiting for it since the sequel was announced.
KGF stands for ... Kolar Gold Fields. The movie thing aside, there is a long story behind this KGF.
KGF History ..
KGF stands for Kolar Gold Fields in Karnataka. The mines are located in Robert Sunpeta taluka, about 30 km from the South Kolar district headquarters.
KGF Township is located 100 km east of Bangalore on the Bangalore-Chennai Expressway. The Quint News website describes the history of the KGF in its article.
According to this account Michael FitzGerald Laville, a British soldier who came to India from New Zealand in 1871, built a house in Bangalore. During that time he spent most of his time reading books and magazines.
Thus, he once read a four-page article published in the Asiatic Journal in 1804. It says that gold can be found in Kolar. After reading it he became interested in the Kolar mines.
While reading it, Laville also found a report written by John Warren, Lieutenant General of the British Government. According to the sources, Tipu Sultan was defeated and killed by the British at the Battle of Srirangapatna in 1799 and the Kolar took control of the surrounding area.
But, after a while the English ceded the territory they had conquered to the kingdom of Mysore. But the Kolars kept the land with them to survey
Search for gold ...
Warren announced that he would give rewards to anyone who provided him with information about gold in the Kolar region, as he had heard that people were digging the earth by hand and extracting gold during the Chola rule.
A few days after the announcement, some villagers approached Warren in a bullock cart. Kolar mud was sticking to that bullock cart. The villagers showed up to wash the soil before Warren. Gold molecules were found in it.
With that, Warren began research in the area. Locals digging for gold by hand found that they were extracting 56 kg of clay-sized gold paste.
He told his superiors that we could extract more gold if technology combined with the skill of the locals.
Much research and survey was done in the Kolar area between 1804 and 1860 after Warren reported. But the English found nothing there. To no avail, many lives were lost during those excavations. Excavations there were banned.
However, after reading the Warren Report in 1871, Laville became interested in the Kolar gold mines.
Lavil went to Kolar, a hundred kilometers from Bangalore, in a bullock cart. After nearly two years of research there, he asked the Maharaja of Mysore in 1873 to allow excavations in the area.
Lavil was licensed to excavate in the Kolar area for 20 years. He then began excavations in the area in 1875.
Lavil initially spent most of the years collecting money and preparing locals for work. After many problems, gold was finally extracted from the KGF.
The first town in India to get electricity..
KGF mines first used torches and kerosene lanterns for lighting. But, that lighting was not enough. So it was decided to put current lights there. Thus KGF became the first region in India to receive electricity.
For power needs near Kolar Gold Field, a Kaveri power station was built 130 km from the area. It is the second largest power plant in Asia after Japan. It was built on the Shivanasamudra in the present Mandya district of Karnataka.
KGF is the first area in India to be fully electrified. With the construction of the hydroelectric power station there was electricity for 24 hours. KGF has been gaining prominence after Bangalore and Mysore due to gold mining.
With the advent of power supply, gold mining in the KGF increased. Various machines were also brought into the mines to enable faster excavations.
As a result, as early as 1902, the KGF began extracting 95% of its gold in India. By 1905, India was the sixth largest gold miner in the world.
KGF as Mini England ..
The appearance of the area changed after the discovery of gold deposits in the KGF. At the same time the British officers and engineers all came there and started building their houses.
The authorities and the common people liked the weather as it was cold in the area. If you look at the rows of British houses built there it looks like England. Hence, the Deccan Herald wrote in an article that it was also known as the Mini England.
The British government also dug a pond nearby to meet the KGF water needs. From there water was supplied through pipelines to the KGF. Later, the pond became a special attraction for the area. British officials and locals used to go there for pleasure.
On the other hand, laborers from the surrounding states also began to arrive in large numbers to work in the gold mines. The area employed 30,000 people in the 1930s. Worker families also lived around the mines.
KGF was nationalized after independence ..
The KGF was taken over by the Indian government shortly after independence. Almost a decade later the gold mines there were nationalized.
In 1970, Bharat Gold Mines Ltd., a subsidiary of the Government of India, began extracting gold from these mines.
At first everything went well, but then the company's profits began to decline day by day. After 1979 the company ran into losses that did not even pay its workers the minimum wages.
The KGF situation, which accounted for 90 per cent of gold mining in India, deteriorated further after the 1980s. At the same time the company also laid off many workers.
At one time, the cost of extracting gold was much higher than the value of the gold mined there.
In 2001, Bharat Gold Mines Ltd. decided to stop mining gold in the KGF. After that the whole area was devastated.
Gold has been mined in the KGF for over 121 years. Excavations continued until 2001.
According to a report, more than 900 tonnes of gold has been mined in those 121 years. Everything in the KGF was frozen for 15 years after the excavations there stopped.
