Shillong, March 17: One coal block in East Jaintia Hills secured consent to operate ( CTO) but actual mining will take some more time in the absence of machinery and other equipment, an official said.
The plan is for progressive mining.
However, an official statement by the Chief Minister’s Office said i’n a historic’ moment for the state of Meghalaya, the 1st Scientific Mining Coal Block in Meghalaya at ‘Saryngkham-A’ Coal Mine, Byndihati, East Jaintia Hills District was inaugurated by Chief Minister Conrad K Sangma through video conferencing at the programme held at Byndihati attended by Cabinet Minister, Kyrmen Shylla, Sutnga-Saipung MLA, Santa Mary Shylla, Executive Member, Jaintia Hills Autonomous District Council (JHADC), Hambertus Nongtdu, Deputy Commissioner, East Jaintia Hills District, Shivansh Awasthi, Superintendent of Police of the district, Giri Prasad, other invitees and people of the area.
Addressing the gathering, Conrad congratulated all concerned stakeholders including officials, mine owners, other mining lease applicants, the owner of this particular mining lease, Dapmain Shylla of Byndihati who have all contributed in making scientific mining in the state of Meghalaya a reality while also stating that the last 10 to 11 years have been one of the most difficult years for a lot of the citizens of the state especially those who are directly and indirectly connected with the coal industry who went through financial hardships.
Conrad recalled that in 2018 when he became the Chief Minister for the first time, leading the MDA Government, the issue of coal mining ban was accorded top priority by the government with the hard work in the last six to seven years having yielded fruits through the inauguration of the 1st Scientific Mining Coal Block in Meghalaya. “The journey wasn’t so easy. The journey wasn’t very clear. In fact, it was like moving through uncharted territory, not knowing what challenge would come up in front of us while we moved forward, what kept us going was to see that the difficulties that our people are going through, we must find a way to resolve this and bring back normalcy for our people and our citizens, and that’s what really drove us”, he said.
The chief minister also said that the process of ensuring that other applicants receive the same mining permissions and are able to start the mining in a scientific manner is on. “It is always complicated and difficult for the first one or two or three of them, because they are moving in uncharted territory, not knowing what challenges may suddenly crop up and delay the process, but now that there has already been somebody who has moved and seen everything, it is now going to be easier for others who are behind now to move forward, because they have shown the way, they have cleared the way and they have managed to now show to others that this is how we have to follow the procedure”, he said.
He also said that Meghalaya had many challenges, apart from the technological aspect, we have land rights and land holding systems which are very different from the rest of the country, and hence different kind of provisions, different kind of challenges came up in order for us to be able to make this particular mining a possibility and hence it took more time than we expected.
Conrad said further that with the inauguration of the first scientific mining, in future there will be many more that will follow and reiterated that the government will encourage others to also apply so that this can become a normal procedure.
