SHILLONG, April 22: The process for the identification of areas and strategic spots for the deployment of 10 companies of a Central Armed Police Force (CAPF) to check illegal transportation of coal in Meghalaya is on.
Informing this here on Friday, Justice (retd) Brojendra Prasad Katakey said, “The high court recently issued directions and fixed 27, but we expect the Centre to deploy 10 companies of the CAPF. We are in the process of identifying the strategic points where these deployments should be for the purpose of checking illegal transportation.”
Katakey, a retired judge of the Gauhati High Court, was appointed by the High Court of Meghalaya to ascertain whether the state government cracked down on illegal coal mining in accordance with the direction of the Supreme Court and the NGT.
“As you know, the high court in the last order said there will be an officer from Meghalaya Police to be identified by the court. Therefore, it is not on me to identify but as a whole, I am discussing with the police for the purpose of identification,” he said.
“I can speak to the commandants of those units about the preliminary identification of areas or the spots where they will be deployed. We will also discuss if they have any other view,” he added.
Agreeing that the deployment of the central forces to check illegal transportation of coal may be a game changer, he said, “There may be additional check posts as the whole idea is to stop the transportation and if we are successful in stopping the transportation, the mining will automatically stop.”
Giving out his assessment of the illegal coal trade, he recalled that when he was coming to Shillong on April 4, he saw a capsized truck carrying illegal coal, the photographs of which he shared with the court and the government.
He, however, said that the state government was quick to respond and an MPS officer was appointed to conduct the inquiry, and while the preliminary report has been submitted, the final report is awaited.
On the auction of the already-extracted and inventorised coal, Justice (retd) Katakey said 6 lakh metric tonnes (MT) of coal has been auctioned by the CIL so far and the process is on to expedite the auction so that by May, another 6 lakh MT can be put on sale.
Informing that he has taken stock of the quantity of coal transported to the designated depot and the coal is only a part of the inventorised lot which is around 14 lakh MT, he said, “According to the time schedule given by the high court, the government requires to sell 12 lakh MT of coal by end of May.”
The government is behind schedule by 30 days, but efforts are being made to expedite the remaining coal by the end of May, he said.
“What we are trying to do now is to auction the entire 14 lakh MT (instead of 12 lakh MT) before monsoon starts,” the retired judge said.
Another 2-3 lakh MT of inventorised coal can be sold after the 14 lakh MT is auctioned. Any more coal found would be from illegal sources, he said.
Justice Katakey held a review meeting earlier in the morning on the directions issued by the high court.
“I have taken stock of the ongoing investigation relating to the death of three miners. They have already registered a case and a preliminary post-mortem report was submitted,” he said.
The possibility of poisoning is being ascertained in another report, he said.
Meanwhile, the chairman of the Independent Committee on Auction, Naba Bhattacharjee said, “The recent auction of coal as per the high court’s directions was successful to a large extent. Around 4.42 lakh MT of inventorised coal was transported from pit heads to the designated CIL depots and put up for auction through CIL of which 3.38 lakh MT has been disposed of through successful bidders maintaining the timeline given by the high court,” he said.
“After about four years, Rs 50-60 crore will come to the government exchequer. So, the auction has been very successful,” he added.
