By Our Reporter
SHILLONG: The department of Mining and Geology is making efforts to educate the coal owners about a different method of mining which will replace the rat hole mining.
This will ultimately bring about a scientific method of coal mining.
The government has come under fire from coal owners and transporters for its failure to implement the order of the Supreme Court to allow land owners to resume coal mining activities in the state.
Speaking to The Shillong Times, an official said on Monday that resumption of mining involves a lengthy process which is part of scientific coal mining for which an orientation programme for the miners will be held in order to educate them about the new process.
“We have to go as per the MMDR Act but procedure is lengthy. We have to educate the people. Several steps have to be followed and several clearances such as forest clearance, environmental clearance, pollution clearance have to be taken by the miners. There is also the mining plan preparation and the approval to be taken from Ministry of Coal before granting mining lease”, the official said.
The official is optimistic that after the orientation, the people will be clear about what is the procedure involved in starting the legal coal mining.
The official said, “All these months we are working on it. Today (Monday) we held an orientation programme in Jowai and we have issued public notice also in newspapers. We have decided to hold orientation programme in Jowai about educating the miners about the procedure needed to be followed and if we get good response, we will hold in other districts also”.
Companies from Kolkata and those who are involved in legal coal mining in other states will be present in the orientation programme and explain the procedure involved because it is a long procedure as they will discuss about the clearances that need to be taken, mining plan preparation and exploration, the official said.
Further, consultation meetings are held with all the experts, the official said adding that only after the meetings, the stakeholders will be clear about the approach. “That is why now we are holding the orientation programme”, the official added.
When asked, the official said that exploratory mining is still going on and it is not yet complete and the same exploratory mining will be done in other private mines and for those who want to do legal mining.
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The Supreme Court had also directed that the extracted coal assessed by the state has to be handed over to Coal India Ltd for proper disposal.
“We have prepared a plan jointly by state government and Coal India Ltd and we had placed it before the new committee headed by BD Agarwal and the committee suggested some modification. We have made the modification and we will place it in the next meeting for approval, once it is approved the assessed coal will be handed over to Coal India Ltd for auction”, the official said.
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People’s Democratic Front (PDF) MLA Banteidor Lyngdoh said that there is a huge revenue loss after coal mining was banned but he left it to the wisdom of Chief Minister Conrad Sangma to follow up the matter as he is in charge of the department.
“We do not want to comment anything for now as we will see what will be the outcome of talks with Coal India and other procedural arrangements”, Lyngdoh said.