SHILLONG: The rampant illegal coal mining activities have escaped the eyes of both NGT and the Supreme Court as no direction has been issued to contain the trend.
After NGT imposed the ban in April 2014, there was a brief lull in mining activities, but a few months later, there were several cases of illegal mining activities in parts of the State, especially in Jaintia Hills.
This year, hundreds of cases of illegal extraction and transportation of coal were reported in the State with only a few persons being arrested by law enforcers.
Earlier, several commissioners were appointed by NGT to check the violation of ban on coal mining in the State and to report the matter to the green tribunal.
A former commissioner appointed by NGT said on Saturday that while the commissioners appointed by NGT had done their work by way of sending the reports and the videos of violations, the appointment of commissioners was discontinued after the matter reached the Supreme Court.
It was after NGT disallowed further transportation of the already extracted coal that miners had approached the Supreme Court, which subsequently allowed the transportation only for six months.
Last September, the Supreme Court had permitted transportation of extracted coal till May 31 this year.
Following the stoppage of transportation of the extracted coal since May, the Co-ordination Committee of Coal Owners, Miners and Dealers Forum (SCCCOMDF) had sought the intervention of the court to allow six more months for the transportation of the already extracted coal.
As per the official assessment, around 8 lakh metric tonnes of coal are still lying to be transported while 23 lakh metric tonnes were already transported.
The matter is yet to come up for hearing in the Apex Court.
As far as NGT is concerned, the case will come up for hearing on September 12, but hurdles are aplenty before the resumption of coal mining in the state.
During the last hearing, the miners’ body had opposed the move of the state government to entrust Meghalaya Mineral Development Corporation (MMDC) to carry out mining by filing a counter affidavit before NGT.
The miners had also questioned the state government for the delay in preparing the guidelines of Mining Plans even after three-and-a-half years.
Though the guidelines were later submitted, the Coal and the Environment and Forest Ministries are yet to approve the same.
