Chief Minister, Conrad Sangma believes that by ordering a judicial enquiry into the dynamite blast at a coal mine in Thangsku at Mynsngat Village that claimed 27 lives recently, he would be able to divert public attention from the issue and the Government gets a breather. We all know the rigmarole of judicial enquiries in Meghalaya. Has there been a single judicial enquiry in the state’s 54 year journey which has led to those responsible for criminal actions being punished? Not a single one! This enquiry too will die a natural death even while those who lost their lives would have died in vain. Rat hole coal mining is a dangerous activity and labourers put their lives on the line because they are starved of livelihoods. They don’t have any rights because the coal business is illegal and coal barons exploit this to the hilt. Each time a miner goes into an underground hole to dig coal, he knows that he puts his life on the line. Chances are that water from adjoining abandoned mines could flood an active mine and the miners could drown to death as happened in Ksan, East Jaintia Hills in 2018. Then too the bodies of the miners had disintegrated and the search and rescue operation by the NDRF and the Indian Navy proved futile. That episode which claimed 15 lives should have resulted in the closure of all illegally run mines but it turned into another rigmarole.
The National Green Tribunal (NGT) which had banned coal mining in 2014, appointed the Justice BP Katakey Committee to take stock of the coal mined and allow for its auction under the supervision of Coal India Limited. While that auction ostensibly carried on, coal continued to be mined because the coal lobby actually funds elections and quite a few coal mining barons are part of the government. Everyone is in the know as to who these coal barons are who are termed as “high level” but neither the Opposition Parties nor the sundry pressure groups in Meghalaya have ever called out these mining barons because all benefit from this illegal trade. Even today, not a single note of protest is heard from these two-faced pressure groups which otherwise are hyper-active about controlling the influx of non-tribal labourers from other states and even from Bangladesh. The question is – Why this stunning silence? Had it been any other issue that claimed 27 lives at one go these same pressure groups would have come up with banners of protests.
This newspaper has consistently pointed out the venality that marks the politics of Meghalaya. About three weeks ago it was pointed out that several trucks belonging to the “high level” with modified carriers that extend the height of the trucks so they can carry loads of up to 150 tonnes were carrying coal and were all plying without registration numbers. The State Transport Department should have been held accountable for this gross act of defiance of the law that binds other citizens. But the Transport Department pretends it is blind and deaf and everyone knows why this is so. The Department of Weights and Measures too should have taken action but that is reserved for small offenders. And then we have the Police Department and the District Administration both of which seem to have taken a vow not to blow the whistle on this criminal act of illegal mining and transportation of coal. As for the judicial enquiry, some retired judge will be appointed and the enquiry will go down a cul-de-sac as had happened in the smart meter scam and the rice scam of the MDA-1 Government.
