SHILLONG: The new chairperson of NGT appointed committee, Justice BD Agarwal, former Judge, Guwahati High Court, took charge on Tuesday to oversee the transportation of already extracted coal and ensure protection of environment.
Agarwal, who arrived in Shillong, collected the Supreme Court and NGT orders related to coal issue from the officers.
The chairman did not hold any official meeting since it is his first visit to Shillong in the aftermath of the NGT ban on coal mining.
Sources said that the new chairman wants to ensure that the already extracted 32 lakh MT of coal is auctioned and transported as per the guidelines without any further delay as this will reduce pilferage of coal or addition.
The NGT principal bench had appointed the new chairman after the former NGT panel head BP Katakey quit the post since the government delayed in following up his suggestions related to auction and transportation of coal.
Last month, the NGT principal bench criticised the government for expressing its inability to follow the suggestions given by the Katakey panel.
The NGT said they are not unable to appreciate the reasons for the stand by the government that the recommendations of the Katakey panel are not feasible. One of the recommendation of the Katakey panel was that the state government should provide North East Space Application Centre (NESAC) the longitudes & latitudes of each dump where coal is to be auctioned. NESAC should also prepare geo-reference mapping for location of each dump and give it to state and Coal India Limited and they should put it on their website.
However, the government maintained that the identification of sale-points will be duplication of exercise and added that geo-referencing details are already there in affidavit filed by the state which has been provided to CIL and the same will be put up on website.
The Katakey panel had also asked NESAC to conduct the annual land-use land cover analysis to determine continuous existence of coal on the sale-point. “It is a matter of regret that state of Meghalaya, has by uncalled for objections, created a situation to hamper a credible mechanism set up by this Tribunal and approved by the Supreme Court by practically compelling the chairman of the committee to seek recusal”, the NGT principal bench had said.The green panel, after accepting all the recommendations of Katakey committee, wanted monitoring of illegal mining and transportation of coal by the chief secretary of the state; steps for punitive measures for illegal mining – filling up gaps in the regulatory regime; action for preventing, minimising and mitigating environment pollution by acidic water from coal depots; electronic recording of movement of coal including by way of tracking devices and having a central server for the purpose.
The NGT also wanted inspection by the wings of BSF and vigilance department.