By Our Reporter
Shillong: Former Advocate General Ganold S Massar while speaking at the session on ‘Governance Issues’ laid special emphasis on the illegal mining of limestone and coal being carried out in the State especially in Jaintia Hills.
The very fact that the administration is complicated involving layers after layers of governance has made it difficult to tackle land-related problems such as mining and the like, he observed.
“With the 6th Schedule in place in Meghalaya, the procedure of solving any issue is very complicated as the same has to pass through the traditional institution then the district council and later the State Government,” Massar said.
Massar was addressing a session on the last day of the Basin Development Week organized by the State Government at Yojana Bhavan, Meghalaya Secretariat here on Thursday.
Deliberating on the topic of natural resource management in the State, Massar said since land belongs to private individuals, hence the question of restricting the said land from being used for mining purposes does not arise.
“It is up to the people being the sole owner of the lands to decide what is beneficial to the environment and what is not,” he added.
Briefing on the history of Jaintia Hills, the former advocate said erstwhile major portion of land are British areas and since independence, the Assam Land Revenue Law operates here but after achieving statehood, the land comes under the jurisdiction of the district councils.
“And here is where solutions to problems gets stuck since a lot of things are not settled by the court of law with the Sixth Schedule in place,” he observed.
However, as far as coal mining is concerned, being a serious threat to the lives of many, the management should be held accountable and the authorities should solve this problem before it gets ugly, he said.
Lamenting on the delay of the implementation of the much-awaited Mining Policy which would regulate mining activities in the State, Massar said the reason could be traced back to the vote bank politics in Meghalaya.
“It seems many people don’t want to see this law in place as it would disrupt most of their activities,” he claimed.
Meanwhile, Dr AK Nongkynrih, Professor of Sociology, NEHU spoke at length on the way forward in good governance. “This ambitious programme of the government should be considered as a movement,” he said.
Recollecting the days when Meghalaya was fighting to achieve statehood, Nongkynrih said, “Following in the same lines, we should not rest until this programme turns out to be a success.”
He further stated that the idea of this project should be rooted in the languages of the people even while encompassing every individual including men, women, youth and children.
“The government should see itself as a participatory facilitator and not only policy and decision facilitator,” Nongkynrih said, adding that team work in the field by implementers is very important.
Later, the 4-day Basin Development Week which got underway on Monday was concluded with the release of the Integrated Basin Development and Livelihood Programme document and launch of the IBDLP website by Chief Minister Dr Mukul Sangma.
Addressing the plenary address, Dr Sangma called upon an aggressive publicity of various government programmes stating that, “It is the key to sensitizing and enlightening the people of government schemes.”