By Our Reporter
SHILLONG, Sep 12: If all goes as per plans, Meghalaya is likely to usher in a new era of economic progress through scientific mining of coal within a months’ time.
Chief Minister Conrad K Sangma on Tuesday said the final stage of the scientific coal mining plan is being vetted and things will start happening in a matter of weeks or a month.
The government is currently in the process of giving approval to the mining plans of the four agencies that have received the NOC from the Centre, Sangma said.
He said that the process is now at a very advanced stage.
On demands being raised by some pressure groups to reduce the required area of mining from 100 hectare, the CM said, “We were fighting in the Supreme Court against the NGT ban and discussing the same with the central government. We wanted the process to start and this is what is important to us. When the discussions took place there were different factors that were put in like area, use of technology, etc.”
“The GOI was very particular that the mining area should not go down and so we felt that we should set the ball rolling. Let mining start now and in the next stage we can discuss reduction of the area required for mining,” he added.
He said that in other states the government owns the land and the mines and they lease it out to private parties. “Here, the private party owns the land and the government is acting as the agency to lease it out again to another individual to mine it. So the government has to change the rules based on Meghalaya’s land holding system and that is where the complications arose,” he pointed out.