Former Chief Minister, Mukul Sangma has repeatedly called out the illegal coal mining and transportation that is a daily occurrence and is witnessed by all those who travel along the routes through which the coal trucks are passing. Interestingly there are police check-points right from the coal mining areas to the highways where it is being transported. The duty of police is to check whether coal is being illegally mined and transported out. If coal is still leaving the state what are the police personnel doing? What is the order given to them? Is it to ensure smooth passage upon payment of certain sums of money or to stop the coal trucks and register FIRs against them? If the police were carrying out their duties there would have been thousands of FIRs at each of the districts and the courts would have been overwhelmed with these cases.
The question is how such grave illegalities can happen over years without detection. Is there a single policeman who has been hauled over the coals for failing to do his duty? Is the law and order machinery so decadent that it allows itself to be used as a political tool? The reason why former DGP, Prakash Singh approached the Supreme Court for police reforms was to check the complete politicisation of the police force, especially the appointment of DGPs. A conscientious policeman, Mr Prakash Singh was also deeply perturbed by the quality of policemen recruited at the level of the states where corruption is at its height.
However, policing is only one part of the illegal coal mining saga; the entire government machinery from the Mining to the Transport Department are all involved. It is a well-oiled nexus which works according to the diktat of the respective ministers in charge of the Departments. The bureaucracy in Meghalaya is not known to stand up to politicians. Every official adopts the path of least resistance. Since challans are forged to show that coal is being transported from Assam and is crossing Meghalaya en-route to Bangladesh, it is obvious that this is happening at the behest of the Government. Neighbouring Assam is more vigilant in detecting the fraud because it is losing income tax worth crores of rupees when papers clearly show that coal trucks have passed through Assam on their way to Meghalaya. This has been the modus operandi adopted by the MDA Government since it ruled Meghalaya in 2018 and no power on earth seems able to dismantle this game of thrones. Meghalaya is turning into a rogue state and even the Opposition is unable to stem the tide either than making a repeated media spectacle about illegal coal mining. As long as the voters are not afflicted by this venality, nothing will change.
