BY H H Mohrmen
In the last two months Meghalaya has been in the news for all the wrong reasons. The rat hole mine accident has put the state in the limelight and the people of the state to shame. The story of fifteen miners trapped inside a rat hole mine inundated by water at a place known as Ksan which falls under the Saipung sub division of the East Jaiñtia hills district is being broadcast far and wide. Unfortunately the news has put the state government and its people in very bad light not only because the mining activity is illegal in the first place, but because of the way it was carried out which shows that the coal business is being run by heartless people who care very little about the safety of the people who work for them.
The incident also brought to light the kind of Disaster Management preparedness that we have in the state. Our disaster response force may be prepared for other kind of disaster but not for the kind we saw unfolding at Ksan. In spite of all the efforts from the SDRF, the NDRF, the team from Indian Navy, the Fire Service from the state of Odisha, the Powerful Water Pump from the Kirloskar Brothers Company and the scientist from the National Institute of Hydrology, Roorkee and the National Geophysical Research Institute of Hyderabad, we are yet to come to the conclusion of how this will end.
The pertinent question that we need to ask ourselves is whether we can allow this dangerous method of mining to continue? Can we allow the existing rat hole mining method, both the box cutting and side cutting which are environmentally hazardous and have no safety mechanism for the miners to continue in the state?
The incident at Ksan also brought to light the fact which the activists have all along tried to expose about the way how coal mining has polluted the surface water in the area. During summers when it rains, water which overflows from the mines carries acid mine drainage (AMD) to the streams and pollutes the rivers nearby and downstream. And at the outset of every summer before the miners start their mining activities the water from mines is pumped out to the surface which again pollutes the water bodies. This is how the entire water system in the state is polluted when water laced with acid is pumped to the ground.
And now that we know how deep the mine shafts are, we also realise that in this method of mining even underground water in the area is no longer safe for human consumption. Because the main shaft of the mine goes many hundred feet below, many a time it reaches and hits on the underground water before it reaches the coal seams. Hence not even the underground water is spared. This column has time and again tried to expose this truth but it is only the unfortunate incident at Ksan which helped people understand the magnitude of the problem.
The report of the three member fact finding Commission instituted by the NGT to find out about the illegal mining and transportation of coal from Meghalaya despite the ban, also corroborated the charges made by the activists that mining and transportation of coal continues despite the ban. This writer in an article had even called the MDA a Mining Denial Alliance, and lo and behold it is the Ksan tragedy which brought the truth to light. What was not reported was the fact that transport of coal is more profitable to the coal mine owners and traders during the ban. This is one aspect of the transportation of coal that the Commission led by Hon’ble Justice Retired BP Kataky missed in its report.
If one coal challan cost more than Rs 60,000 one can imagine the amount of money that changes hands when coal is transported illegally without having to pay anything to the government. Now the question is who gains from the illegal transportation which has been going on all along? Is it just the Police, the Officials of DMR and the Transport Department? Or are those in the authority also getting their share from the spoils?
The truth is even during the last few weeks when the Supreme Court allowed transportation of coal; all trucks drivers deliberately overloaded their trucks and happily paid fine for overloading. The complaint is because the cost of challan is more than sixty thousand rupees hence the need for overloading and this happened even at the international port where coal is exported to Bangladesh. The point is that wherever there is coal there is crime; in fact the coal trail is being paved by illicit acts of corruption. Again the pertinent question is who gains from this?
After the complaint filed by the Dimasa Students Union, Assam alleging that illegal coal mining in Meghalaya has polluted river Kupli, the NGT had ordered an interim ban on rat hole mining and transportation of coal from April 17 2014. Impulse NGO also filed a case with NGT against coal mining in the state, but after that NGT allowed transportation of supposedly extracted coal from Meghalaya several times. The other question is who are the people in charge of taking stock and of assessing the so called extracted coal in the first place? It cannot be denied that numbers were exaggerated since the assessment was done. But as a matter of fact in spite of the ban, transport of coal did not stop and mining continues in the mines which are located in the far flung areas like Ksan and Briwar.
Now, on January 4, NGT imposed a of whopping Rs 100 crore fine on the state of Meghalaya for its failure to curb illegal coal mining in the state. The question is why should the state pay the fine? What about those who benefited from the illegal act? For a poor and a debt ridden state like Meghalaya, Rs 100 crore is not a small amount, but why would the government only pay the fine?
Finally the appointment of an Amicus Curie by the Supreme Court of the Country to help the court in the matter is like the court hearing the voice of those who had lost their lives in the mining. The Amicus Curie together with the Citizen’s Charter is also speaking the voice of the voiceless, the voice of the people who live in the villages downstream of Kupli, Lukha, Myntdu or Prang whose waters are not fit for human consumption. We now hope that what is unfolding before our eyes is that the Universe has finally heard the cries of the dead fishes, the turtles and all the aquatic life that coal mining has helped to make extinct.
Ksan is not just the name of a place. In the indigenous religious system we have a saying ‘Ksan nia ksan chang’ when we bid farewell to the departed souls. In fact there are two common sayings for such situations, ‘Chong suk bam kwai ha duar U Blai’ and ‘Ksan nia ksan chang ïa kiwa dang sah cha sla pyrthai.’ The first statement is common to both the Khasis and the Pnars but it is the second saying which is unique to the Pnars. ‘Ksan nia ksan chang’ is to beg the departed souls to plead with the Almighty on behalf of and for the wellbeing of those who are still on Earth.
Ksan is therefore a place from where those who have lost their lives working hard in the mines to eke out a living pleaded ardently for a better future for the state with their Maker. There are miners whose deaths may have been recorded and may also have people who still remember them, but there are many miners whose deaths were not recorded and have nobody to remember them. They may have died since the seventies, the eighties or the two thousands, but Ksan is a place from where their common cry is heard. The Khasi Pnar also believe (ba ka snam kiba ïap mynsaw ka shait ud haka por ba ngen u bnai) that the spirits of those who die accidental deaths howls in pain. Let us therefore hope that Ksan is where their blood mourns for one last time and their cries of anguish will be heard. Ksan is from where Mother Earth shouts, “Enough is Enough.”