By HH Mohrmen
This lie is as old the state itself; it has been going on for more than four decades and one wonders where will this sham will lead the state to. It started on the pretext that rat-hole mining in the state is permitted on the strength of a DO letter from the central government to the government of the State of Meghalaya then. The story that was doing the rounds was that the former MP GG Swell convinced the central government to exempt the State from the purview of the central laws which governs both extraction of minerals and those with regards to environment and forest conservation.
This went on till the late 90s when young people from Jowai contested that the so-called exemption of the State from the National Minerals and Mining Act has no legal standing because it is based on that one DO letter only. To cut a long story short, coal mining in Jañtia Hills district started since during the British time, albeit at a cottage industry scale and the coal mined was used by the sahep and the missionaries to warm their houses during winter. Till the early eighties boilers using coal were still used at the Jowai Mission Hospital, but commercial coal mining at least from Jañtia Hills started in the 1970s.
This goes on without any disturbance from any angle and everybody was happy because both the State and the District Councils shared the royalty from the mineral and the coal mine owners gained the maximum benefit from the business. No doubt others too profited from the business. The public did not complain except occasionally when these coal laden trucks cause undue hardships to the commuters by creating traffic jams because of the trucks carrying overloaded coal.
In the span of four decades rat-hole mining has made people in the coal mining areas rich and it has earned the Government some revenue but at what cost. The immediate and visible loss was the lost of forest cover in the coal mine areas but the greatest loss was of the contamination of water and the loss of aquatic life in the water bodies. Not only was water in coal mine areas contaminated from the crude mining process but even rivers downstream were affected. This scribe has brought to the fore this very distressing issue in which the people who live downstream of the rivers had to bear the brunt of losing their livelihoods from fishing and more sadly having to survive on polluted water from acid mine drainage which flows in these rivers for no fault of theirs.
Even the former MP GG Swell himself has brought this issue to the light and warned against the unregulated mining and concentration of wealth in the hand of few people only by referring to the fact that the exemption was on the strength of a DO letter only. This warning was published in his article on the souvenir published on the occasion of the silver jubilee celebration of the Jañtia Hills Autonomous District Council. Nobody in the helm of power, neither those in the ADC nor the leaders in the State Government paid any heed to his forewarning. So the successive governments in the State from its inception to the Government of the day have to bear moral responsibility to what is happening in the state now.
Labour rights in the mining business were not considered important as most of the labourers who did the hard work of going into the pits were outsiders till the incident at Ksan. It may also not be out of place to mention that before the Ksan incident, loss of precious lives was not accounted for, not only because most of the miners were outsiders, but even if locals died it was treated as unfortunate incident because the labourers were not aware of their rights. It was not till the unfortunate flooding of a mine in Ksan village that people started to realise that the rights of the labourers also has to be respected. Unfortunately, it is not known to the public whether the coal mine owner in Ksan was even punished and the labourers who lost their lives were duly compensated and whether their families received justice for their loss.
Even in the present case where six miners fell into an abandoned coal mine the owner will go scot free and in despite the fact that the culprit has violated the court order and did not respect labour rights, it will be fair to assume that as in the previous case nothing will happen to the culprit. This is the state of affairs in the coal mine areas in Meghalaya and it cannot happen without the Government officials being complicit in the act. The question is – Can the government wash its hands of this unfortunate incident?
The Hon’ble Supreme Court lifted the five- year NGT ban on mining and transportation of coal from Meghalaya last July, on the condition that the State Government ensures that the mine owners follow all the Mining Acts and respect the laws and regulations for protecting forests and the environment. Yet without complying with the Court orders the Government is turning a blind eye to the illegal activity of coal mining and transport of the same from the State making it a partner in the crime. When mining in the State is continuing unabated then is this not a case of contempt of the Supreme Court order by the State Government?
Many private parties and individuals too have filed their petitions in the top court of the country pleading with the Hon’ble Court to lift the NGT ban on mining and transportation of coal from the State. The parties were hopeful that the Court order (which they believe is in their favour) will allow them to continue with their business, but it is now obvious that the Government is becoming an obstacle to miners realising their dreams. By not complying with the Court order and instead allowing mining and transportation of coal to continue, the Government is indirectly involved in delaying if not denying the coal miners the chance of seeing this business resume.
The Government it seems is deliberately trying to circumvent the Court order and purposely delaying in acting on the order, thereby assuming that in course of time people will forget about the issue and mining will continue without any regulations. If this is not the intention of the MDA Government then why is it turning a blind eye when the illegal transportation of coal and mining continues unabated? The Government cannot blame the police or the government officials for what is happening; surely this cannot happen without the knowledge of those in power. Government officials too cannot simply blame their political masters for the sad state of affairs and excuse themselves by saying that they were compelled to do so. The salary of the Government employees is paid from the public exchequer and they are expected to carry on their duties diligently and to serve the people and abide by the law of the land. But the situation is as it is because the Government servants don not have a spine to stand against illegal and immoral act and they succumb to the pressure tactics of the politicians.
Isn’t it time to punish the officials who are involved in facilitating this illegal activity, and make them realise that they are paid by the Government to maintain law and order and they are paid to serve the interests of the public and not the interests of the selected few. Why does the Government not punish the erring officials? Is it not true that their hands too are greased? How many more lives will it take for this mayhem to stop and for justice to prevail? Government servants, be they the police or the officials in the transport department, the officials in the DMR and even the magistrates involved in the act should be taken to task.
This scribe has been writing on this issue since the early nineties and after the NGT banned mining on the basis that mining in the State is illegal, one was hopeful that something good would come out of this imbroglio, but the Government does not seems to learn from the NGT ban and the SC lifting of the ban on coal mining in the state. There is no denying the fact that Meghalaya is going downhill and one cannot just blame the politicians who bought their way to power for all the mess that is happening. Everyone is part of this lie and this lie has to stop if the State is to move forward.