Council writes to government against illegal transit of coal from Jaintia Hills
JOWAI: The Jaintia Hills Autonomous District Council is incurring heavy loss of revenue due to illegal transportation of coal from Jaintia Hills despite the ban imposed by the National Green Tribunal (NGT) on mining and transportation of coal in Meghalaya.
Excess loads of coal transported from Meghalaya to Beltola, Panchgram and Karimganj in Assam and also to the cement plants in East Jaintia Hills has also been contributing to the JHADC’s losses in terms of royalty collection from mineral resources.
“Trucks have been transporting coal illegally without transits challan and excessively beyond permissible load capacity,” the JHADC stated in a complaint to the Principal Secretary in charge of State Mining Department on Tuesday.
The JHADC has also taken exception to coal traders transporting coal by using transits challan issued in West Khasi Hills, South West Khasi Hills and even Garo Hills.
“This illegal practice has badly affected the economy of the JHADC since 80 per cent of the JHADC revenue comes from its share on royalty collected from mineral resources particularly coal,” JHADC Executive Member in charge of Financial Affairs, JR Pyrtuh said on Wednesday.
“If coal traders are using transits challan issued by the Department of Mineral Resources (DMR) outside the jurisdiction of the JHADC, the share on royalty will go to that particularly District Council and not to the JHADC even though the mineral is being transported from our district,” Pyrtuh added
Another JHADC MDC, on condition of anonymity, claimed that the NGT ban has come as a golden opportunity for some government officers who allow overloaded trucks and trucks transporting coal without valid transits challan to ply in the district.
The MDC further informed that each truck carried excess load of coal to the tune of 20 MT, which is beyond the permissible 9 MT load capacity ordered by the Supreme Court.
“The royalty on coal is Rs.675 per MT. On a truck illegally carrying 20 MT of coal, the State Government is losing royalty of Rs.10,125 while the JHADC is losing Rs.3375 per truck. 500 trucks are illegally transporting 10,000 MT of coal each day without a single penny being paid either to the government or the JHADC. The government is thus suffering a loss of around Rs.50 lakh each day while the JHADC is losing around Rs.17 lakh daily from the illegal trade,” JHADC members have claimed.
The MDC further claimed that hundreds of metric tons of coal have been transported to cement plants in East Jaintia Hills without any transit challan. Interestingly, neither the government nor the JHADC gets any revenue from the coal transported to the various cement plants.
Pyrtuh claimed that the JHADC has never earned any revenue from the coal transported to the cement plants.
“We are quite concerned over the loss of revenue and if this continues the JHADC will not only face acute financial crisis but will definitely collapse,” Pyrtuh observed.
WJH admin to take stock of NGT ban violation
The district Administration of West Jaintia Hills is likely to meet next week to discuss reports of mining of coal in violation of the National Green Tribunal (NGT) order.
West Jaintia Hills Deputy Commissioner PS Dkhar on Wednesday informed that no complaints of illegal mining of coal had come to his notice and added that police and magistrates have been deployed in coal mining areas to ensure that no one extracts coal.
The district administration has already imposed Section 144 CrPC in the district restricting mining of coal.
The administration had conducted a survey in December and found that no incident of mining had taken place in the district.
On the other hand, East Jaintia Hills Deputy Commissioner WR Lyngdoh informed that the district administration had detected two cases of NGT order violation last week and accordingly measures were taken to stop such practices.