SHILLONG: The Movement for Indigenous Peoples’ Rights and Livelihood (MIPRL) has submitted a representation on the plight of people due to coal mining to the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Personnel, Public Grievances, Law.
The committee, which is scheduled to arrive in Shillong on Friday evening, will hear the grievances of people arising out of NGT ban on coal mining.
While welcoming the arrival of the Committee, the MIPRL said in a statement issued on Thursday that it had sent a memorandum on the blanket ban on coal mining by NGT to the Parliamentary Standing Committee.
“The representation has highlighted the economic plight of the people, the legal and constitutional position as well as the police firing at Mukhep which resulted in the death of Setlang Phawa and Derister Siangshai and injury to six others”, the MIPRL chairman HS Dkhar said.
The MIPRL chief said that people were willing to cooperate with the Government to bring in environmental recovery and protection systems.
According to MIPRL, the representation highlighted the paramount provision of Para 12 A Sub Para (b) but more importantly, there is the provision within the NGT Act itself to give relief to the coal sector in Meghalaya.
“At the same time the MIPRL has ascertained with irrefutable technical basis that the coal and limestone deposits in the state of Meghalaya is the only one of its kind in the world and therefore the mining system employed is also unique and only requires fine tuning to make it environmental friendly”, MIPRL claimed.