SHILLONG: With the Opposition and BJP continuing to throw a torrent of brickbats at the MDA Government over illegal coal mining, the Thma U Rangli-Juki (TUR) has now come forward to accuse the state government of encouraging illegal coal mining, thereby blatantly disregarding the directives laid down by the Supreme Court.
In a statement issued here, TUR said that Chief Minister Conrad Sangma, rather than working to eradicate the menace of illegal coal mining, is encouraging the illegality of the coal mafia in state.
“It appalling that Mr. Sangma defends the criminality of coal mining in the Meghalaya Legislative Assembly through willful misrepresentation of the existing reality,” the organisation said.
TUR said that one of the first important interventions by Justice Katokey was to not take government’s claim that there was 32,56,715 MT of extracted coal waiting to be auctioned and transported.
The organisation stated that Justice Katokey, knowing that there has been a constant inflation of amount due to the illegal extraction of coal, wanted to ensure that there is a proper verification of stocks and location of such claimed stocks.
“Keeping in mind security and conflict of interest issues, Justice Katokey suggested, based on capabilities and presentations by North East India Space Application Center (NESAC), that the coal stocks can be independently estimated and located through satellite imagery as it is a global practice,” it said.
“Moreover, based on time series image data, which NESAC holds, even the curse of illegal mining can be plotted,” the organisation added.
“Knowing that recommendations from Katokey Committee would have removed the loopholes which allowed illegal mining and transportation to have continued, Government of Meghalaya stopped cooperating with the Committee, forcing Justice Katokey to tender his resignation,” it added.
Demanding Justice Katokey’s recommendations to be implemented in toto, the organisation said there should be no auction of coal before the extracted coal is located and geotagged, and transported to the depots. Based on the satellite data, any coal extracted after the NGT ban should be seized and sold by the government without any payment to the illegal coal miners; no mineral transportation challan should be issued, they said.
The organisation said that transportations of illegally mined coal should be carried out by the government sans any compensation to the miners and an independent person or persons from civil society should be made part of the monitoring committee set up by the NGT.
The organisation maintained that the officials of the state government should be penalised for the illegal actions done notwithstanding the Supreme Court’s directives.