Chief Minister Conrad Sangma in his meeting with Prime Minister Modi waxed eloquent on climate change concerns. He proposed to hold the International Conference on Climate Change in Meghalaya. He says the Conference will showcase the various climate-related good practices in the region and bring out an action plan for climate change reversal and mitigation. All this sounds good on paper and the people of Meghalaya should be proud to have a chief minister that agonises on the adverse and often irreversible effects of climate change. But the events unfolding day in and day out in Meghalaya where coal is dug unscientifically and illegally to the point of poisoning rivers and cement plants that don’t have adequate effluent treatment plants because their eye is on profit, not the environment, belie the CM’s claims of environmental concerns. Just the other day a 12-tyred coal truck overturned and killed one person. The mining tragedy that killed six people is hopefully still fresh in the memories of the people of Meghalaya even though the poor labourers belong to a neigbouring state. What happens if a similar tragedy happens even while the Climate Conference is in progress? Would Meghalaya have the grace then to admit to its double standards?
Those who govern this state are leading a Jekyll and Hyde existence and allowing for massive destruction of the environment through unregulated mining of coal and limestone and also large scale quarrying of sand and stones to the point that rivers have run dry, changed courses or have become unfit for human consumption. All this is happening in the foul claim that “land belongs to the people,” and government has no control over how landowners make use of their land. This is a hollow claim because as has been argued successively, no land owner can destroy the lives of the present and future generation on account of their wealth-acquisition projects. There is such a thing as corporate responsibility and payment for environmental depredation. Such a cost has not been extracted from these land owning cabals for the Meghalaya Environment Protection & Restoration Fund (MEPRF). Interestingly, the term of reference of the Fund is to look only at restoration of environment damaged due to coal mining. This is because the NGT has not taken cognisance of the damage caused by limestone mining especially in Shella-Bholaganj and Nongtalang areas. Imagine over 300 truckloads of limestone daily crossing the Bangladesh border and the extensive loss of forest cover and change in the landscape of those mining areas! And if Lafarge the international cement company is made to pay a heavy environmental cost why is this same edict not applied to other private miners?
The Meghalaya CM needs to do some soul searching before waxing eloquent on the environment and ask himself if his heart and head are on the same page.