SHILLONG: A joint committee of the Centre and the State dealing with coal-related issues has entrusted the State government to carry out a pilot study of a cluster of rat-hole mines in Jaintia Hills taking them on watershed basis for treatment and ecological restoration.
Chief Minister Mukul Sangma, in his reply to a question by HSPDP’s Witting Mawsor, said in the Assembly on Friday that the pilot study can be used for preparing a comprehensive ecological restoration plan for the mine area.
The implementation of the pilot project will be funded by the State. The chief minister said the State government has been asked to consider engaging National Environmental Engineering Research Institute (NEERI) in the pilot restoration exercise.
It was through an NGT order of March 31, 2016, that the committee was constituted under the chairmanship of the Secretary, Ministry of Environment Forests and Climate Change (MoEFCC), with the state chief secretary, the secretaries of the Environment and the Mining departments and the additional secretary of the Ministry of Coal as members of the Committee.
The Committee had first met on May 4 this year under the chairmanship of the secretary, MoEFCC, in Delhi in which all the members from Meghalaya were present. It was decided in the first meeting that NEERI would conduct site visit between May 30 and June 3 and submit the report to the committee.
The green tribunal in its July 21 order had directed MoEFCC, the Ministry of Coal and Meghalaya to hold a meeting presided over by the MoEFCC secretary to finalise the mining plan and mining policy, including the scheme for the restoration of the environment and ecology.
The second meeting was held on August 3 in the office chamber of the chief secretary and it was then that several recommendations were made, the chief minister said.
As per one of the recommendations of the committee, no mining should be allowed without obtaining prior environmental clearance under the Environment Impact Assessment Notification, 2006.
The MoEFCC will also make available the expertise available with BSI, ZSI, Regional Office and CPCB to the State government in carrying out the pilot restoration work.
The State government will constitute a co-ordination committee headed by the principal secretary (Forests and Environment) with members drawn from all concerned agencies, which will carry out a monthly review of the implementation of the action plan.
The suggestion of NEERI regarding sealing of abandoned rat-hole mines by engineering interventions may also be examined by the State, the chief minister said.
