SHILLONG: The issue pertaining to illegal transportation of coal continues to haunt the ruling MDA Government as there are credible reports that trucks carrying illegal coal have been plying with impunity and seldom get intercepted by the police.
According to media reports in Assam, 150 trucks entered Assam on the night of October 5 and only two were detained in Beltola in Guwahati, while on the morning of October 6, as many as 650 trucks entered Assam. There is no way anyone can check the veracity of the numbers quoted but it is an incontrovertible fact that coal is being clandestinely sold in Assam.
A source close to the ruling MDA Government said here on Tuesday that earlier there were several allegations of illegal transportation of coal in the state and the incumbent Home Minister Lahkmen Rymbui was trying to streamline the functioning of the department. Rymbui was entrusted with the Home portfolio in controversial circumstance when his predecessor James Sangma’s name figured in smuggling of coal – a lucrative trade for the coal-rich state.
It may be mentioned that CBI is currently carrying out investigation in Barak valley about an organised racket in selling Meghalaya coal to Bangladesh via Karimganj in Assam.
Informed sources claim that the state police is like a caged parrot unable to function freely. That it sometime intercepts coal-laden lorries is an eyewash. To show that they are active, the state police recently detected two trucks driven by Samlang Mawlong (25) and Protesius Mawlong (36) respectively, transporting coal in violation of NGT order at Sohiong Petrol Pump, Len Mawtap, Sohiong, East Khasi Hills.
Admitting that things are in a mess in the government, the source said that an illegality which was taking place for years together cannot be eliminated overnight.
So vicious are the racketeers, about two years ago when the CSWO President, Agnes Kharshiing and her associate went for physical check of mining area, was brutally assaulted by coal mafia in East Jaintia Hills. The organisation has once again petitioned Meghalaya DGP along with the photographs alleging that coal trucks are stationed all along Mawryngkneng and the Shillong Bypass facing towards Jowai to avoid detection.
It may be mentioned that the issue pertaining to the illegal transportation of coal even forced a group of Cabinet Ministers to take it up with the Chief Minister, Conrad Sangma. Although the Home portfolio got shifted from one minister to another, not much change seems to have occurred and the coal seems to be finding their way out of the state, in spite of the NGT ban.