Shillong, Oct 12: The one-man inquiry committee headed by Justice (retd) B P Katakey which was appointed to recommend to the state government the measures on coal-related issues, finalized a comprehensive policy for the transportation and auction of already extracted coal on Wednesday in its sitting.
Stating that in terms of the Supreme Court order, the comprehensive policy for the transportation and auction of coal was not finalized till date for many reasons, he said, “In today’s proceeding that we could finalized the policy is a positive step I could take since the reverse comprehensive plan has been finalized and which would be notified by the Government of Meghalaya in a short period of time is what was assured to me”.
He said his next step is to ascertain the exact quantity of extracted coal available as according to the State government it was mentioned that there was more than 32 lakh metric ton of extracted coal post NGT ban in 2014, but he needs to know the exact quantity.
He informed tha, in South West Khasi Hills, there was 3.19 lakh metric ton of extracted coal out of which 3.08 lakh metric ton is done with and reassessment of 6,000 metric ton is yet to be done and the case is similar with South Garo Hills district.
Pointing out that the major chunk of coal is available in East Jaintia Hills District, he said that 50 percent assessment on the availability of the coal is done and the Deputy Commissioner in today’s meeting had assured him that the complete assessment would be done by 14 of this month.
He informed that policy also dwells upon how the transportation is to be carried out and how the challans are to be prepared and what features are to be included in the challans.
He further informed that apart from the registration number of the vehicle , the name of the driver, owner and route to be taken have to be mentioned in the challans and every truck must have a GPS system and follow the designated route.
Pointing out that there are various media reports on misuse of challans, he said that aspect is also being looked into.
The High Court had appointed Justice Katakey, a former judge of the Gauhati High Court, on April 19 to ascertain whether the Meghalaya government has complied with the directives of the SC and the NGT for cracking down on illegal coal mining.
It may be noted that Justice Katakey had resigned as Chairman of the NGT panel, constituted by the Tribunal and endorsed by the Supreme Court, in December 2019 citing personal reasons.
The panel was appointed on August 31, 2018, to finalise the mode and manner of auction of over 32 lakh metric tonnes of coal lying in various places across the state to be conducted by CIL.
It was later revealed that the actual reason behind Katakey’s resignation was that the state government had refused to divulge details of the already extracted coal. The state government had even written to the committee that it had no jurisdiction to seek such information.