The Constitutional Rights Forum (CRF) , a pressure group from Garo Hills has been raising a stink about the illegal coal mining that continues unabated in South Garo Hills. The pressure group has written to no less than the Chief Secretary asking that action be taken against officials that are facilitating this illegal coal trade. They include the district administrator, the Director Mining and Geology, the Commissioner of Transport amongst others. For some reason the police have been kept out of the complaint. One of the illegalities that has persisted in Meghalaya is the illegal coal mining which became a public embarrassment for Meghalaya when in December 2018 the Ksan mining tragedy happened which led to the death of fifteen miners whose bodies, barring one could not be retrieved by the Indian Navy divers despite their best efforts. A case was filed in the Supreme Court by a compassionate Delhi based lawyer on behalf of the families of the deceased miners. The Supreme Court after several hearings allowed coal mining on the condition that rat hole mining would be banned and that the State should have a fool-proof mining policy both of which have been violated by the State Government. In the absence of petitioners informing the apex court of the grievous violations of its orders, life goes on as usual. It is also evident that the entire government machinery is in collusion with these illegalities beginning from the Deputy Commissioners to the Superintendents of Police who have become acquiescent facilitators of what wrongdoing.
It is rather late in the day for the United Democratic Party (UDP) to be raising their voices now in the penultimate year of the MDA Government of which they are a coalition partner. Above all the Home Minister is a UDP man so they are castigating one of their own and it is expected that they should hold him accountable for the continued venality in the Home Department because without the collusion of the police, coal cannot be transported out of the state. The UDP can therefore not wash its hands off the illegal mining saga.
It is also intuitive that the inquiries into the deaths of the miners in the Ksan mining tragedy of 2018 have not been made public till date. Other mining tragedies have occurred but they have slipped off our collective memories. Neither the Opposition MLAs nor the public of Meghalaya care about these poor souls. They have become mere statistics. On Meghalaya’s 50th year should it not be the desire of the people of the State to end this state-sponsored malfeasance?
