The Meghalaya High Court has pursued the issue of illegal coal mining and illegal coke units in the state with relentless zeal. The people of Meghalaya particularly those who have had to put up with the smoke and grime emitted by coke factories in Jaintia Hills and Garo Hills have been at the forefront in seeking the court’s intervention. The Court has responded and in doing so has given hope to millions of citizens that justice is not beyond their reach. For years people living around the coke factories have inhaled the toxic smoke released from the factories and many have complained of respiratory ailments. This was what pushed the Environmental Co-ordination Committee (EEC) of Sutnga, East Jaintia Hills to pursue the matter assiduously and now they see the result of their honest pursuit. Before that the coke mills in Shallang, West Khasi Hills were also brought down.
Coke is a by-product of coal and the fact that large number of coke units are running, some without any environmental clearance means that illegality in the State is a norm. Coal mining has been banned in Meghalaya since 2014 but coke production has carried on for nine years now without any of the regulatory bodies batting an eyelid. It means therefore that there has been state collusion in all these years saying a word about it. Both coal and coke have been used by the cement companies based in Jaintia Hills. It would have been expensive for them to import coal from outside the state. The cement furnaces do better with coke since most of the impurities have already been removed from it. Coke is a fuel used in blast furnaces that produce iron from the ore and is also used as a reducing agent in the extraction of metals such as zinc and iron, etc. But using both coal and coke comes at a heavy environmental cost.
The abandoned coal mining areas have not been reclaimed but are left with those gaping holes being filled with rain water during the monsoons. After a mine is abandoned, coal mine owners move to another place in the vicinity. It is shocking that they manage to get environmental clearance without a glitch. When the new mine is drilled and miners go down about two hundred feet into the ground they begin to dig horizontally and often hit an abandoned mine. That’s when the new mine floods and people inside die before they can get out. This is a repeated saga in Meghalaya but it only became public in December 2018 when about 15 people were trapped inside and only one person was able to escape. The bodies of those trapped could never be retrieved. This in itself should have warranted strong action against the state but nothing happened. Thankfully, the no-nonsense Meghalaya High Court is today on the right track.
