Meghalaya Govt waiting for Coal Ministry’s permission to open the mines for starting scientific mining of coal: CM

Syllad | The Rising MeghalayaJanuary 15, 2025

The state government is waiting for the coal ministry’s approval and permission to open the mines for starting the much-awaited scientific mining of coal in Meghalaya.

Informing this on Wednesday, chief minister Conrad K Sangma said that the public hearing for the scientific coal mining in three locations had taken place about two months back.

“After that again the file has got back to the forest and the pollution board and necessary clearances have been given from the forest and environment department and pollution board and now the files have reached Delhi,” he said while adding “Now the coal ministry in Delhi is now going to give the final (approval) after seeing all the approvals that have been given by the different departments of the central government and the state government. Now the final approval and the stamp is given by the coal ministry for the permission to open the mines and that is the final permission that is to be given after the coal ministry goes into all these aspects.”

Asserting the need to understand the complexity of actually get the NGT ban lifted, Sangma said, “It was a very complex and difficult procedure that we had to follow. Not only the fact that we have to fight with different agencies in terms of the NGT, others in Supreme Court which again was very complicated and difficult which we prevailed of course and we got the ban lifted.”

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“We also required to start the scientific mining and procedures as per our land laws out here which are very different from the rest of the country and hence the Government of India had to make specific provisions for Meghalaya because the land holding system is different out here which is then again created a large hurdles for us,” he said while adding “We also of course had the issue where the mines were of different nature, the technology being used would be slightly different compared to other places, which have scientific mining because the seams and the coal that is present out there is in layers and it’s very small seams that are there. So hence the technology being used in other locations does not completely solve our problem, so on and so forth there were multiple issues that came up because it is a completely new area.”

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On the concerns expressed by the opposition over the delay, the CM said, “Some concerns were raised by certain individuals about the delay, but these are very difficult aspects which needed to be handled at multiple levels, whether it’s a government of India, whether its NGT, whether it’s the environment, whether Supreme Court, Coal India we have talk to multiple agencies. So, therefore it’s very easy to look from outside and say, what is happening, what is happening, why things are not moving fast, but it’s very complicated and once we are complete with the whole process and once we come out with the full detail of what happened, I’m sure people will appreciate the work that we have put in to make this happened today.”

“It was very difficult, but as I said that today, now we just waiting for the coal ministry after all the permissions have been given from all the concern stakeholders in departments, final opening permission of the mines will be given by the coal ministry looking at all the paper works submitted by the state and the central government agencies,” he added.

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