SHILLONG: Chief Minister Conrad Sangma said on Friday instead of banning coal mine activities must be regulated with more focus on environment factors and safety of miners to ensure that economic development is not stalled.
Speaking to reporters, Sangma said, “The best way forward is to come out with regulated safe mining procedure and allow the mining to take place keeping in mind the environment and safety of the miners as a top priority. Regulation must be such that the economic condition is not affected.”
Stating that illegal coal mining was prevalent even under the previous MUA government and cases were registered against illegal miners, the chief minister said the current government “is making efforts to stop such activities” but “it is very difficult for the government and other agencies to always keep a watch”.
Last November, Sangma had said there was no illegal mining in the state since the NGT ban came into force.
Sangma was optimistic about finding a way to have safe and scientific mining.
When asked about the rescue operations in East Jaintia Hills, Sangma pointed to the logistical challenges.
“Around 7-8 agencies are working… the Centre and the state are putting in 100 per cent efforts from all angles. The situation is tough with multi-layered problems,” he said.
With the Supreme Court stepping in and asking the state government to take prompt, immediate and effective steps, Sangma said he respected the opinion of the SC.
However, “whether it is the logistics of simply getting the pump to the location or even after getting the pumps to make them functional, the logistics is tough and challenging and we have to do what we could do the fastest”, he added.
The chief minister also pointed out that there are no maps of the illegal mine tunnels. According to him, the army’s responsibility is at a different level while the National Disaster Response Force was called in immediately to deal with the disaster.
“We have agencies like the Navy which are more appropriate as it is an underwater situation, but even the Navy with specialised divers had big challenge going in. One must realise that not only the water is deep but realize that the tunnels there are quite narrow and we are still figuring out whether the navy divers will be able to enter even after the water is brought down because with the oxygen tanks it would be a logical challenge,” Sangma said, adding that he has been in touch with the DC and the SP and the people on ground zero almost on a daily basis.
Commenting on the issue being politicised, Sangma said disasters are unexpected and one should not play politics in such situation and it is not appropriate for the opposition or anybody to play politics with such a situation.
Speaking on the funds he said though massive funds are required since pumps are taken from Coal India, Kirloskar Brothers and Odisha Fire Service pumps to start the operation and requires a huge amount of petrol and diesel and generators to run at the same time for a continuous supply for about 10-15 hours.
“So the cost is there but the lives of the people are important,” Sangma said.
