SHILLONG, June 30: Meghalaya Chief Minister Conrad K. Sangma on Tuesday said the State government will seek the Centre’s support for reforms to the existing open-cast scientific mining framework, arguing that the current model is financially unviable for a majority of coal miners despite the lifting of the coal mining ban and the approval of scientific mining. The State will also press for amendments to the Mines and Minerals (Development and Regulation) (MMDR) Act and other policy interventions to enable smaller miners to participate in scientific coal mining while complying with environmental and legal norms.
Sangma said he would meet the Union Home Minister and the Union Minister for Coal and Mines during his visit to New Delhi to discuss mining-related issues affecting Meghalaya.
“I will be meeting Union Home Minister and Mining Minister with regards to mining issues that are there in our state. As you are aware that though the ban on coal has been lifted and though there is approval for scientific mining in our state which has been given by Coal India and by the Mining Ministry and other agencies. The challenge we face is that the open cast mining which is what the scientific mining requires at this point in time is something which is not working out in terms of financial feasibility for our miners because most of our miners because the land size is big, the investment are huge and the seam level,” Sangma said.
He said the State government has been engaging with miners who have raised concerns over the feasibility of operating smaller mines under the existing framework and are exploring alternative technologies that could be considered by the Centre.
“So there has been concern from our miners that smaller mines should be allow, we have been working on the past, we have been looking at different technologies, the miners has presented very beautiful technology to us. We are going to share with Government of India, we hope that we get a positive response but as I said it is not as simple as we wanted because there are standard at national level, change the MMDR Act, amend them or make different changes or find another ways which we are able to find solution to this but as I keeping in line with different need of our people, this is very important subject for us and therefore, like we have done in the past we will continue to take up the matter though as I said, we have scientific mining, yes scientific mines coming up which are open cast which have started producing, but in order to be able to go large scale, and to be able to give the benefit to all our miners, we need to work a bit more harder to get the different provisions at Delhi level and MMDR Acts to be done,” he said.
Meghalaya to Seek Centre’s Support for Open-Cast Mining Reforms
