Resubelpara, April 8: Justice (Retd) B P Katakey visited Resubelpara in Nofth Garo Hills (NGH) on Wednesday to meet officials of the district administrations North, East and South Garo Hills on issue of illegal coal mining.
The meeting was held at the office of the Deputy Commissioner, NGH and was attended by the DC’s, SP’s and state officials Naba Bhattacharjee (technical advisor – GOM) and director of minimg MB Tomper.
The primary focus of his visit and meeting with the district officials was developing and implementing action plans to curb illegal coal mining activities in Meghalaya.
Katakey said the whole idea of was to discuss the action plan to be prepared for curving the illegal coal mining activities.
Talking to media-persons following the meeting, Katakey said, “Nobody can deny the fact that illegal coal mining activity is going on in Meghalaya, which resulted in very unfortunate incident causing death of close to 18 persons recently.”
He added the meeting was to discuss the action plan to curb illegal mining of coal. He referred to four types of coal being moved around as of now – legally mined coal, inventoried coal, illegal coal that is seized and the last being completely illegally mined coal which is transported.
“After that unfortunate incident, the district administrations have prepared the action plan as directed by the Mining and Geology Department Government of Meghalaya, in pursuance of the recommendation made by Meghalaya High Court,” he added.
He said that following the implementation of the new action plan, there has been some semblance of control over the situation. However, he added there were some findings that needed to be studied and worked on.
He referred to cases filed against illegal coal mining that have been registered in police stations.
“The role of the owner of the land is not investigated. Their role should be investigated because the mine cannot be dug up overnight to extract coal from there and subsequently transport it. They cannot say that they do not know what is going on over their own land,” said Katakey.
Katakey added that the implementation was good in Garo Hills as barring South Garo Hills, there are reportedly no active mines in either the North of East Garo Hills.
Prior to coming to Resubelpara, Katakey had also visited the village of Hahim near Athiabari in Assam where he found many coal depots on the Assam side.
“Where is the source of this coal? We have to find it out. Since there is illegal mining and transportation of coal in the state of Meghalaya, it is likely that this coal is sourced from Meghalaya. This has to be investigated,” he felt.
The former Justice stated that he would set up a recommendation for the creation of smart check gates in these areas so that these kinds of activities can be curbed. During the meeting, he had also spoken to the department of mining to look at the feasibility of setting up a gate near the Assam – Meghalaya border as a measure to curb such acts.
Further he observed that in Dainadubi in NGH, there was only a transport check gate but no police picket which felt was necessary to curb this illegal transportation.
Katakey stated that following the meeting he would put forward his recommendations to the Meghalaya High Court which would include the setting up of smart gate near Athiabari, the inclusion of a police picket within 100 metres of the Dainadubi transport gate and to make the temporary check gate at the Mendipathar Railway Station into a permanent one to ensure curbs remain to control illegal mining.
