SHILLONG, Aug 22: East Jaintia Hills is known to be a coal mining hub of Meghalaya. 65-year-old Self Denial Lyngdoh grew up seeing coal mining in his village Moopala under Elaka Sutnga in East Jaintia Hills. He too comes from a family of miners and that was the only trade they knew. Life went on as usual until the National Green Tribunal (NGT) banned coal mining in April 2014. The ban came like a bolt from the blue and hit the income of a large number of families in Jaintia Hills, West Khasi Hills and Garo Hills as well.
While some continued with illegal coal mining, Lyngdoh decided he was going to undertake a different journey. He started planting 3,000 oranges trees in an area of over 100 acres which was once dotted with coal mines. He then added to the number of orange trees.
At present he has about 20,000 orange trees all doing very well and yielding a rich harvest. In the mining areas of Jaintia Hills one sees miles and miles of black landscape because the mined coal is carried to different depots from there they are weighed and transported to Bangladesh and elsewhere.
Lyngdoh was once a staff of the Forest Department which he joined in 1987. In 2002 he resigned and took up coal mining as a full-time business. That coal mining is a prolific business for many households in and around Sutnga is evident from the beautifully designed homes that dot the Moopala locality with tastefully done interiors. This changed post 2014. Lyngdoh did not wish to cross swords with the NGT and had in fact closed up some of the coal pits which he showed to this correspondent.
Of the 16 pits he was extracting coal from, Lyngdoh had closed up three of them and was in the process of closing up the others too but some geologists from the Directorate of Mineral Resources (DMR) visited the place and told him to keep the mines as they are for the time being since they would be demonstrated as some kind of model.
Father to four grown-up children, Lyngdoh and his wife Prima Donna Nongtdu live in Sutnga. His wife works in the Health Department at Khliehriat and children too are all in different professions. He says he has seen coal mining in his village since he was a 14-year-old boy.
Sharing his story, Lyngdoh said he has been telling other friends with coal mines to also start greening up their space so that they can earn from other more sustainable sources.
“I have told my friends and my brother too to start growing fruit trees. In my orchard as you can see I am also growing jamun trees and other fruit trees too because I have been advised by the Horticulture Department that oranges grow well with other trees.”
Lyngdoh has named his farm Green Acres Farm and the plot where his orchard is located is called Madan Mokhlot. What is admirable about Lyngdoh is his interest in developing multiple livelihood scenarios around what was once a mining area. He has created four water bodies with assistance from the Fisheries Department. The area now looks like a potential tourist spot with orange trees by the thousands. Some of them have started bearing fruit and in the next few years Lyngdoh sees himself exporting these fruits to the rest of India and even abroad.
When asked what gave him the idea for starting an orchard and give up mining, Lyngdoh said he felt that an alternative to coal mining was perhaps the need of the hour, hence the NGT ban.
On August 7 this year, Lyngdoh received the Sustainable Agriculture Awards in New Delhi under the Viksit Bharat programme. He was awarded in the category of climate resilient crop variety for growing Mandarin Oranges.
Last year he was awarded the Certificate of Recognition by PRIME Meghalaya for entrepreneurship. He was also awarded by the East Jaintia Hills deputy commissioner for his green initiative as part of the Meghalaya Green Campaign.
Lyngdoh is passionate about maintaining his orchard and employs 4-5 people to do the weeding and feeding supplements to the upcoming trees. He has changed the landscape of his village from black to green and remains a model to others.
