By H.H.Mohrmen
On the November 21 en route to the National Seminar on the theme ‘Prioritizing Issues: Role of NGOs and Corporate Social Responsibilities’ organized by Lady Keane College, newspapers in the state reported the phenomena of Lukha river changing colour yet again. In my speech I dwelt on two points, namely – what is CSR and whether any industries or industrial units in the state have seriously implemented their CSR as such.
Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is not a new term in Meghalaya’s lexicon but the idea itself is quite new particularly with regards to mining. In spite of the fact that coal mining in the state started since the late seventies, yet the words CSR are relatively new. Simply because only local tribals are involved in coal and limestone mining business hence no one talks about their corporate social responsibility perhaps because they are not seen as corporate entities in the business. Hence their responsibility towards the environment and the community is deliberately being ignored by local mine owners. The absence of a mechanism to manage and control mining in the state also gives mines owners the opportunity to absolve themselves of any kind of social responsibility and get away scot-free without implementing CSR.
The other reason that led to the non-practice of social responsibility is the prevailing land tenure system in the society. People still have this idea that because they own the land they can do absolutely anything with the land. They have no responsibility with regards to the outcome of their action and there is no sense of giving back to the society or the environment. The result of this irresponsible mining is the dwindling forest cover, polluted rivers, the loss of agriculture land and etc.
Traditionally, customary practices of land ownership, be they community land or private land is that the present generation are mere custodians of these forests or lands. These lands have been handed down by the clan from one generation to another since time immemorial. But the present generation has taken it upon themselves to exploit the minerals and have destroyed the land and forest therein in the name of tradition and on the false premise that they own the land. This is contrary of the tradition being practice by our ancestors where they recognized that we are only stewards and no right over the land because it does not belong to us, but to our children and generations to come.
Now it is too late to expect the coal and limestone mine owners to act on their social responsibility, because the government does not have any mechanism in place to ensure that they do so. Even the cement companies’ implementation of CSR is not up to the mark; we are yet to see any serious efforts from the industry in this regard. Except for supporting schools, colleges, churches and organisng health camps and tree plantations and providing stipends to local students, there is no effort to reclaim the forest or rivers.
The cement companies in Jaintia hills also provide support to the public only when people approach the companies with their request. NGOs usually approach the companies to support their programmes like organizing various competitions, concerts etc and the church particularly those in the vicinity of the plant usually approach the companies to support churches’ conferences or assemblies. To address these request the companies in East Jaintia hills constituted an umbrella organization of all the cement companies known as the Jaintia Hills Cement Manufacturers’ Association (JHCMA). The companies also provide cement to individual and organizations in the Narpuh elaka at a subsidized rate.
There is not much that the government can do with regards to coal mines which are operated privately by Khasi, Pnar and Garos because of the land tenure system. Rivers have been polluted and large tracts of agricultural lands are already destroyed. The people responsible for this are allowed to go scot-free despite the fact that coal is the major pollutant. The silver lining is that the government can at least ensure that the cement companies perform their social responsibility to the hilt.
On the November 22, I immediately rushed to Sunapyrdi (Sunapur) like I used to whenever there is a report of the water in Lukha river turning blue in colour. This has become a regular phenomenon and I was perplexed by the cycle of events in the Lukha and my two decades of advocacy experience for environmental protection in the state has not made me any wiser when it comes to Lukha. There are many dead rivers particularly in coal mining areas in Jaintia but there is no incidence of water changing colour or of fishes coming back to the river during summer, the Myntdu the Kupli are all dead rivers and there is no riverine life in them. During the visit I decided to take a closer look and walked till Kuliang and Borsara the last two Indian villages on the banks of river Lukha on the Indo-Bangla border.
Lukha’s case is unique and now that I have walked from the confluence of Lunar and Lukha till it reaches the Bangladesh border, I found out that unlike Myntdu and Kupli the river bed of Lukha is covered with fine mud. My one opinion is the water on the river turns blue because this white mud (some say its fly ash) on the river bed act as a reflector and reflects the lights of the blue sky thereby giving the impression that the colour of the water is blue. Especially when seen from a distance. Then we collected the water in the mineral water bottle and found out that the water is crystal clear. The Meghalaya State Pollution Control Board has conducted a test after the incident was first reported and it was concluded that pollution was caused by coal mining upstream of the river. I am not contesting this finding but I have two questions, what are the small particles that are discharged from the Mahabon cave which then flowed down and covered the entire river bed downstream?
And I will try to answer the second question why fishes resurface in the river every summer? On my visit to the Sunapyrdi last Friday I noticed that locals were catching fish at certain spots on the Lukha. On closer look I realized that the part of the river where people were fishing was where a stream from Narpuh forest discharges fresh water to the Lukha. The point is every summer numerous streams from across the Narpuh reserved forest discharge huge volumes of fresh water and perhaps also fishes to the Lukha and revives the water. This is good news. But once the rains stop only little fresh water from the reserved forest trickles to the river and this in turn causes the regular death of fishes every fall.
Obviously there is still hope to reclaim Lukha and the government can involve the cement companies in east Jaintia hills in the project. There is also a court ruling which makes it mandatory that very corporation allocate 27 percent of its profit to CSR so if the government and the cement companies can work together; this is one feasible project that could produce tangible results. And if the two can cooperate to rejuvenate the Lukha then that will be one of the greatest CSR activities. Hopefully this will make everybody happy.