Meghalaya: no bowing to coal mafia, mining policy on way

Even as the state Government is being accused of having succumbed to the coal mafia lobby by delaying the approval of the mining Bill...

Even as the state Government is being accused of having succumbed to the coal mafia lobby by delaying the approval of the mining Bill, Mining and Geology Commissioner and Secretary Arindam Som brushed aside the allegation and said the mining policy would hopefully be operational during the tenure of the current Government.

Som said the allegation that the Government had caved in to the coal mafia by delaying the policy was a “fiction of imagination” of the media and that the process of consultations to put in place the policy was on. He said the delay was due to the involvement of various departments, including departments at the Centre, in the framing of the policy.

The state Government earns around Rs 100 crore as royalty every year from mining of coal, limestones and other minerals, but the mining policy is still not in existence. According to a senior Government official, the mining industry is growing at a very fast pace and it would be one of the top areas from where the Government would be getting a major share of its revenue.

In the absence a policy, mining is carried out in a very unscientific manner and nobody monitors the quarries and the coal mines. As a result, health and environmental hazards have been a cause of concern.

Som assured that neither the coal mafia nor the Government was standing on the way of the policy. “We are just waiting for the approval of different departments, who are members of the committee who prepared the draft mining policy,” he said. Som said the Geology and Mining Department was sending a second and final reminder to the departments concerned to send back the draft mining policy with their comments. He said if the departments failed to send the draft policy with their comments within two weeks from Thursday, it would be taken for granted that they don’t have any objections or comments to make.