Kiln Fields - How brick kilns hurt the environment

The brickmaking industry gradually converts fertile fields into sterile lands. Here's how it's done...

Sarus Cranes take flight outside a brick kiln in Uttar Pradesh's Rae Bareli district

As a kid when I used to take a bus to go outside the village, usually to Kanpur, the brick chimneys were on my list of wayside wonders. The sites were marked by huge twin maroon chimneys and they dominated the surrounding countryside. I never managed a visit any of them, but I knew they were brick kilns (or ita bhatta in the local language). I could only imagine what went on inside their huge ovens, which churned out hundreds of thousands of deep-red bricks that were used to build our houses. 


My grandfather once showed me the marking on the bricks excavated from our home – BSB. It stood for Bishwambar Nath Bhat, the owner of the brick kiln that supplied quality bricks for our home more than 100 years ago. It was the only one in the district. 


So fascinated was I by the markings on the brick that while hunting for bugs and scorpions underneath old bricks, I would observe the markings first. From just one in the district at the beginning of the twentieth century, brick kilns have now multiplied. So have their tell-tale signs – dug-out orchards, scarred fields, huge red chimneys belching smoke, chimneys under construction, fields full of clay bricks ready to be being carted to the ovens... 


Fuelled by the recent shift in economy, construction activity has boomed. New houses, shops, godowns, roads, panchayat houses, schools, hospitals and more brick kilns – everything requires them. It has become a lucrative industry. 


This is a photo-feature on the brick kilns and their impact on the surrounding environment. 


The Dug Out Orchards

Fresh land is acquired for brick kilns. Often, these are orchards with standing trees

Land is cut away around the roots of trees

This is a very common practice and a slow killer. The land surrounding the trees is cut away. The idea being that mature trees can keep producing the fruits anyway, at least for a few years after which they will collapse due to root injuries or erosion of the remaining soil. Then the orchard will be used as a regular field.

Over time, the trees die from root damage

The Scarred Fields

After the trees are gone the fields, divested of topsoil, turn fallow

Steep banks are formed by continuous water erosion

These are either the unproductive “usar” or fallow lands, usually in the village commons or bought off from farmers in need of money. The contract is for 3-5 years post which the hollowed out fields are returned to the farmers to eke out the meager and largely diminished harvests. Sometimes the soil removal is opportunistic and helps carve out fields from uneven ground. This results in steep banks where the field rat holes become nesting holes. A bank near my home is now used by swallows.

Holes in the banks can sometimes support animal life, like rats and hole-nesting birds such as swallows, hoopoes, bee-eaters and rollers

Breaking New Ground 


To keep the kilns running, new fields are obtained every few years. They are then dug upto 6 feet deep – a process that can take 3 years.

New fields are acquired to keep the kilns running

The Kiln

Enormous chimneys crown the furnaces in which the bricks are baked

The chimney is a part of the huge central semi-circular furnace surrounded by a U-shaped moat-like space, which is stacked with bricks. One batch can run for almost 6 months. The kilns are fired using local wood which, apart from topsoil consumption, constitutes the second huge impact on the local environment.

Fresh bricks are cut out from the kilns

Brick-making consumes a large quantity of firewood, taxing the local environment further

Text and Photographs by Sahastrarashmi

Sultanpur Bird Sanctuary, November 28, 2008

The fog clung to the ground in great murky blankets when I arrived at Sultanpur Bird Sanctuary on this Friday morning. At 6 AM, traffic on NH 8 via Mehrauli and Gurgaon had been thin, but my gruff but kindly Sikh cab driver held my gaze for an astonished moment in the rear-view mirror when I said I was going looking for birds. After driving more than 50 km from Delhi in bone-numbing cold and dangerous visibility levels to do this, he must have wondered. But he only said I could have gone to Bharatpur instead. But Sultanpur, so close to Delhi (in Haryana), is a celebrated avian paradise. And winter made it especially so. A Bluethroat, displaying its gaily banded chest, welcomed me. As the fog lifted, peafowl scuttled, but a covey of Grey Francolins grazed unperturbed on the path ahead of me. A thudding of hooves announced Nilgai. A female followed by three young calves crossed barely a hundred metres in front of me. Sarus cranes were calling, and somewhere among the reeds a Black-necked Stork was planning breakfast. The soft quackering of several migratory ducks, the trilling of Tailorbirds and at least three species of Prinia - Ashy, Plain and Graceful - provided the background music for my morning walk. The mist lifted gently, and the view became less ghostly. Painted storks and cormorants flew overhead. In a copse to my right, two male Black Redstarts had a mild face-off. A Rufous-tailed Shrike picked a dragonfly out of mid-air and dismembered it slowly on a thorn thicket. Red-throated Flycatchers were everywhere, some males showing off their bright throats. The water was alive with ducks. Though I was staring right into the sun, I could tell the silhouettes of Northern Shovellers and Spotbills. There were Common Teals, Lesser Whistling Ducks, Common and Crested Pochards, Tufted Ducks, Gadwall and Garganey. But among them all, sailing like frigates in a flotilla of dhows, were the Greylag Geese. Large, beautiful birds with bills of pink, they lorded over the water. Until a Eurasian Marsh Harrier scattered the ducks and extracted a shudder out of the Greylag flock. There were other raptors too - Spotted Eagles, Oriental Honey Buzzards, Black-shouldered Kites, Kestrels... As winter wears on, these waters will attract more migrants, among them Common Cranes, Bar-headed Geese and a host of warblers and waders. And then, by March, most of them would have returned, but for the Shovellers, who are usually the last to go.

1. Alexandrine Parakeet
2. Ashy Prinia
3. Asian Pied Starling
4. Bank Myna
5. Barn Swallow
6. Black Kite
7. Black Redstart
8. Black-shouldered Kite
9. Bluethroat
10. Blyth's Reed Warbler
11. Booted Warbler
12. Common Chiffchaff
13. Common Coot
14. Common Kestrel
15. Common Moorhen
16. Common Myna
17. Common Peafowl
18. Common Pochard
19. Common Stone Chat
20. Common Tailorbird
21. Common Teal
22. Common Woodshrike
23. Crested Pochard
24. Eurasian Collared Dove
25. Gadwall
26. Garganey
27. Great Cormorant
28. Greater Spotted Eagle
29. Greenish Warbler
30. Grey Francolin
31. Grey Heron
32. Greylag Goose
33. House Crow
34. Indian Cormorant
35. Indian Robin
36. Indian Silverbill
37. Large Grey Babbler
38. Laughing Dove
39. Lesser Whistling Duck
40. Lesser Whitethroat
41. Little Cormorant
42. Long-tailed Shrike
43. Northern Shoveller
44. Oriental Honey Buzzard
45. Oriental Magpie Robin
46. Oriental White-eye
47. Orphean Warbler
48. Paddyfield Pipit
49. Painted Stork
50. Pied Bushchat
51. Pintail
52. Plain Prinia
53. Pond Heron
54. Purple Heron
55. Purple Sunbird
56. Purple Swamphen
57. Red Avadavat
58. Red-throated Flycatcher
59. Red-wattled Lapwing
60. Rose-ringed Parakeet
61. Rufous-tailed Shrike
62. Sarus Crane (H)
63. Shikra
64. Spotbill Duck
65. Spotted Dove
66. Yellow-eyed Babbler
67. Zitting Cisticola

Video grab: Spotted Eagle