SHILLONG: Chief Minister Mukul Sangma said on Friday the BJP government is deliberately blocking the process of exemption of Meghalaya from the Coal Mines Nationalisation Act, 1973, that was initiated during the UPA-II regime.
The chief minister told reporters that he had met former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in 2014 over exempting the operational part of a section of the central mining act through Presidential notification as per Para 12 A (b) of the Sixth Schedule of the Constitution.
Para 12A (b) of the Sixth Schedule states, “The President may, with respect to any Act of Parliament, by notification, direct that it shall not apply to an autonomous district or an autonomous region in the State of Meghalaya, or shall apply to such district or region or any part thereof subject to such exceptions or modifications as he may specify in the notification and any such direction may be given so as to have retrospective effect.”
Sangma informed as per Coal Mines Nationalization Act, 1973 government of India is the owner of the coal mines.
He said the Centre had constituted a committee headed by the Cabinet Secretary to examine the proposal.
“Immediately notification was subsequently issued and a number of developments has taken place. Now what prevents the government of BJP to further examining this,” Sangma said.
“Are they then intentionally blocking it? That means they are conniving to deprive our people from the benefit of the provision of the Constitution,” he added.
Reacting to the BJP’s assurance that it would address the NGT ban on coal mining within six months of its coming to power, he said, “I pity them for their bankruptcy of ideas.”
Sangma maintained that the state government wanted to come up with effective and comprehensive mining policy to enable scientific mining prior to 2014, the year in which the NGT banned the coal mining in the state.
“This responsibility of an elected government was not attended to by the governments in the preceding years because nobody wanted to regulate coal mining activity in spite of the fact that there were certain challenges like the intervention of the judiciary or tribunal,” he said.
Stating that the state government has come up with a policy which was notified in 2012, he said, “This was again misused to malign the party and the government saying that the mining policy will alienate the land rights of the people”
He warned people against the “misinformation campaign” being run by opponents.
Highlighting on the mining imbroglio vis-à-vis the law, he said that as far as coal mining is concerned, it is governed by Meghalaya Mineral Development Corporation Limited (MMDC) Act, 1957 and as per its amended form, coal mines have to be auctioned if it is to be given to the private miners.
“If we are talking about restoring the rights of the people which the state government is standing for, are they (BJP) then trying to snatch away this right? Do they mean to say that they are quietly influencing the ministries, the decision makers,” he added.
Pointing to another parameter, Sangma said that if mining lease is not available for any private parties, mining lease can be given to any state government companies, undertakings.
Commenting on a letter in 1987 from the Central government which stated that government of India does not want to interfere as far as traditional mining in the state is concerned and the rights over mining activities, he said that it had an advisory that the state government may utilize the services of either Coal India or MMDC to facilitate scientific mining keeping in mind the need to do in conformity with the statutory laws in respect of environment safety and health.
On the question of land alienation, Sangma said, “After the mining activities are completed, the mine closure and reclamation has to be done. After having been reclaimed the land, it will be returned. Hence, where is this question of land alienation?”
“Some people think that our people can be misled all the time, fooled all the time. They are cheating people, how does it help the state, government, people,” he said.
