Chief Minister Mukul Sangma’s repeated assurance to the coal lobby that the State Government would accelerate its attempts to convince the Centre and the National Green Tribunal that Meghalaya is a Sixth Schedule State and that the central mining laws should not be applied here are very problematic. Coal mining is an extractive industry which has caused immense environmental damage that are yet to be reversed. The State Government does not even have a plan in place to reclaim the toxic rivers and to re-afforest abandoned mines. Yet, each time the CM tries to explain the deficit budget of Meghalaya by pointing to the revenue loss from royalty on coal mining. In a world that is concerned about environment disasters it is shameful that Meghalaya has not come up with any alternative to a destructive activity like coal mining. This is also an activity that has enriched some in the so-called ‘community’ while extracting a heavy cost on the larger population within that same ‘community.’ These are important issues that call for a public debate.
It is ironic too that on the issue of coal mining the Opposition seems to be on the same page as the Government. The reason is because coal money is intrinsically linked to political funding. It exposes the propensity for self preservation of politicians across the political spectrum. In this respect it is also unfortunate that there is not a single politician in the House who is committed to the climate and environment of this State. In that respect, all of them stand solidly with the affluent coal miners and against the larger public interest. There is much that is lost by way of the toxicity of rivers which used to provide fish and hence nutrition to the large mass of people who don’t benefit from coal mining. Anywhere else in the world, a mining activity that has caused so much environmental damage would have been held to scrutiny by a court of law or the peoples’ court. But in Meghalaya the interests of the many have always been subsumed to maintain the interests of the few. And the Government has no imagination to conceive of alternative livelihoods except to keep assuring this mining clique that their interests will be served even if that means spending public money to employ legal brains to fight that cause. Does Meghalaya need to be financed by revenue that will cause irreparable loss to the environment and ultimately to human life itself?