Meghalaya’s Home Minister in an interview with this newspaper stated upfront that coal mining is a traditional activity which provides livelihoods to many in the State. He also wriggled out of the question of how coal can be transported without being detected by police all along the highway. Instead, the Home Minister threw the question back at the public and their role in reporting any such illegal transportation for which the Government had even put out an award. The police, according to the Home Minister, are not in a position to check the thousands of trucks carrying essential commodities and passing through Meghalaya on their way to the states of Mizoram and Tripura. The Home Minister is of course defending the indefensible since the crores of rupees accruing from the illegal coal mining and transportation does come into the coffers of those who facilitate its movement.
From 2014 Meghalaya has been losing revenue to the tune of over Rs 600 crores after rat-hole coal mining was banned by the National Green Tribunal after it was reported that several people died inside the mines with the deaths going unreported. Besides the acid mine drainage had turned several rivers adjoining the mining areas and even those at a distance toxic and unfit for human use or consumption. In fact, these rivers are so toxic that they no longer support riverine life. The NGT is right in responding to the reports of irresponsible and unsustainable mining without any environmental costs being paid by mine owners for offsetting the climate change phenomenon that happens as a result of mining activities. The incessant landslides across Meghalaya in the past few months are warning signs that unscientific mining could result in flooding and caving of mines which could bury people alive.
Meghalaya has been reporting that there is no mining since 2014 to the Union Ministry of Mines. The Minister for Mines has stated this in the Rajya Sabha on two successive occasions and therefore misleading the country. The Supreme Court maintains that mining can only start once there is a mining policy in place which will take into account the environmental concerns in a holistic manner. The MDA Government has been trying to wriggle out of this compliance requirement because the mine owners are also funding the elections and they don’t want a policy that cuts into their profits. In this situation an illegality has been allowed to thrive for several years. It is time that political parties that promise to bring change in 2023 make legal mining of coal an active agenda. Let coal be mined legally and let the revenue accrue to the state exchequer and not to private coffers.
