SHILLONG: The industrial area in Barapani has at least four saw and veneer mills and two cement companies (RNB Cements and RKB Cements) in an area that surrounds the Umiam Lake.
The saw and veneer mills require a constant feed of timber which are sourced from the forests of Meghalaya.
A Supreme Court ban on timber was lifted in 2006 with the directive that all states should have a working plan on how they utilise their forest products.
For a while some attention was paid to this directive but now it is all but forgotten.
Whenever the issue of dwindling forest cover is taken up with the Forest Department the glib response is that it only has control over 4 per cent of the forests in Meghalaya while the District Councils actually have control over the rest 96 per cent.
But the councils lack the human resource and the political will to safeguard the forest cover of this state, which is fast depleting.
The Supreme Court has in 1996 put a 10-year moratorium on cutting of trees and especially of exporting them outside the state. The increasing number of saw and veneer mills suggest that most of the wood is exported outside Meghalaya and there is no regulation whatsoever either by the Forest Department or the District Councils.
What concerns many young entrepreneurs who have opted for a non-polluting business model like tourism are the polluting industries that surround the Umiam Lake, particularly the RNB Cement Company. Tourists who stop at the lookout point near Ryndang Briew on the Shillong-Guwahati road are appalled at the cement company belching out black smoke day in and day out. A tourist speaking to this correspondent said, “Meghalaya has to choose between tourism and polluting industries. You cannot have both.”
But the owners of these industries claim they have the permission and all clearances from the State Pollution Control Board. The saw and veneer mills owners claim they also have permission from the Forest Department.
The question is how these companies were given environmental clearances and which institution was commissioned to do their Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA).
“While tour promoters are trying to sell Meghalaya for its natural landscape, the government appears to have some other idea and the two just don’t converge. If these polluting industries are allowed to set up shop around ecologically fragile areas like the Umiam Lake and inside forests then we will soon have lesser tourist footfall and tourism as an opportunity will be lost forever,” a leading tour operator told this correspondent.
Clearly, tourism is not going to be sustainable in the long run if polluting industries are allowed to populate the state. But will the government take a call on this?
