SHILLONG, Aug 2: Against the backdrop of Union Minister for Coal, Mine and Parliamentary Affairs, Prahlad Joshi, making contradictory claims that there has been no coal production in Meghalaya in four years, the opposition has asked the Meghalaya government to take a clear stand on the issue.
Pointing out that the Union minister’s statement is in stark contrast to what has been repeatedly enunciated on the floor of the Assembly in Meghalaya, the opposition Trinamool Congress (TMC) Chief Whip, George B Lyngdoh, said, “I think the state government has to come out with a clear response on this. I think the reply given in the Parliament is also of the state government but in the Assembly, we are having different replies so the state government needs to come clean about its stand.”
Asserting that the statement has come as a surprise, Lyngdoh said, “I saw the response of the Union minister in the Parliament. Now people across the state have been seeing the trucks tumbling all across the state and being caught. We have a very weird situation wherein, in Parliament, the public is being told that there is no coal production but here in the state, they are seeing coal all across.”
In a written reply in the Upper House on Monday, Joshi had asserted that no coal production has been reported in Meghalaya in the last four years as per information received from Coal Controller Organisation (CCO).
This statement, strangely, bore no resemblance with the ground reality as is evident from the overwhelming number of expose on illegal coal mining and transportation in the state.
The minister also informed the Rajya Sabha that the estimated coal resources in Meghalaya as per Coal Inventory of India published by Geology Survey of India (GSI) on April 1, 2021, is 576.48 metric tonne.
