High wages keep illegal coal mining going in Meghalaya: Justice Katakey

Illegal coal mining continues in Meghalaya largely because it pays far better than anything else on offer, not only because of gaps in enforcement, according to Justice (retired) B.P. Katakey, who heads the one-person committee appointed by the Meghalaya High Court in 2022 to oversee the issue.

Katakey said, according to The Shillong Times, that coal workers can earn more than Rs 2,000 a day, against Rs 700 to Rs 800 in other daily-wage work. That gap keeps drawing workers, including people from outside the state, and supports a wider local economy of shops and small businesses that depend on mining traffic.

Money in the bank, little change on the ground

Katakey pointed to nearly Rs 350 crore lying in the Meghalaya Environment Protection and Restoration Fund (MEPRF), part of which he said could go to building alternative livelihoods. Around Rs 100 crore is also held by the Central Pollution Control Board for environmental purposes under a Supreme Court order.

Some money has been spent on training people linked to coal mining, he said, but he has not seen a positive impact. Livelihood schemes must change people's incomes in measurable ways rather than stop at training programmes.

"Unless the government is successful in providing the alternative source of livelihood, I don't think that this will discontinue," he said.

Most recommendations only partly done

Of the 48 issues flagged in his preliminary report after his appointment, only about four to six have been fully implemented, Katakey said; most of the rest are only partly addressed. He has asked the government to revise its status report to separate completed, partly done and pending measures.

He has also sought a detailed report on a recent coal truck incident that blocked traffic for hours, to check whether the coal was illegally mined and, if it was legal, whether it was moved according to the standard operating procedure.

Meghalaya's coal mining has been under judicial scrutiny since the National Green Tribunal's 2014 ban on unscientific rat-hole mining. Scientific mining under approved mining plans has since resumed in a limited way, but illegal extraction and transport keep surfacing before the High Court.