Shillong : The Cabinet in its meeting today, took up the proposal of the Mining & Geology Department to exclusively deal with the coal
related issues in relation to the proposal of the State Government for exemption of the operational part of the Coal Mines Nationalization Act, 1973, through a Presidential Notification rescinding its operation in the scheduled areas of Meghalaya.
In view of the coal mine owners and operators in the State being affected by the ruling of the National Green Tribunal (NGT) on mining and transportation of coal, the Cabinet was briefed by the Department on how the proposal would help expedite the process of bringing all coal mining activities under regulation and achieve the objective in the best interest of the State and its people.
Addressing the media persons after the meeting, Chief Minister Dr. Mukul Sangma recollected the fact that the State Government over a period of time was engaged in the exercise of bringing all mining activities in the State under appropriate regulation conforming to the whole requirement of statutory laws pertaining to environment safety, labour laws, etc and based on that long drawn exercise with the involvement of the stakeholders, the State Government had come up with the Meghalaya Mines & Minerals Development Policy, 2012, he said, adding that exercise was on after a number of workshops and interactions to ensure implementation of the policy.
However, even before this regulation was operationalized in 2014, the NGT came up with a notification banning coal mining activities and transportation in the State which, he said, was an offshoot of the representation submitted to the Tribunal by some organizations. Subsequently, the whole mining activities in the State were affected and regulated from time to time by the NGT in respect of coal which were already extracted and still in the mines and which were required to be transported and disposed off, he added.
The Chief Minister went on to explain that “in the meantime, the State Government had taken steps to ensure that the whole bottleneck in implementation of various statutory laws to bring the coal mining activities in the State under appropriate regulation needed to be addressed in the right perspective. Since there were certain laws enacted by the Parliament which came in the way of enforcing the statutory laws to bring the coal mining activities under regulation, the State Government, after due diligence, took up the issue with the Government of India and in May, 2014 after exploring all possibilities, submitted the proposal to the Government through the then Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh that the Para 12A(b) of the Sixth Schedule of the Constitution be invoked to provide exemption in respect of the operation of the Coal Mines (Nationalization) Act, 1973 in the scheduled areas of the State.”
“This was done in view of the fact that Coal Mines (Nationalization) Act, 1973, particularly in Section 3, is that all the coal mines in the country stand transferred to the Union Government. Post 1973, Meghalaya Government took up the issue of with the Union Government and it did responded to the request of State Government indicating that it would not put a hold on to mining activities in respect of Meghalaya so as not to dislocate the mining activities of the State’s indigenous people, which were considered in small scale at that point of time, with a rider that the State may take measures to enforce various statutory laws in respect of environment safety and labour laws, by utilizing appropriate authorities, may be Coal India or MMDC. However, for many years these measures were not put in place and we are now confronted with this challenge, where the NGT had to intervene” he said.
“Now there are two things before the State Government to deal with the situation – one is how to operationalize the Meghalaya Mines & Minerals Policy, 2012 to conform to the various statutory laws in respect to the environment safety, labour laws, etc, and another is to make its submissions to the NGT to vacate the earlier order banning coal mining and transportation in Meghalaya. However, in order to place before the NGT all the measures which can be implemented by the State Government, the first hurdle is the Coal Mines Nationalization Act, 1973,” he said. Therefore, he said that the Mining and Geology Department came up with the proposal to exclusively deal with the issue of the proposal of the State Government to prevail upon the Union Government to exempt the operational part of the Coal Mines (Nationalization) Act 1957 through a Presidential Notification rescinding its operation in the scheduled areas of Meghalaya.
He also refreshed the memories of all present saying the State Government in 2015 had proposed an amendment of the Mines & Minerals (Development and Regulation) Act, 1957 and the amended Act has its implications in respect of various mining activities in the State of Meghalaya, including coal and therefore a resolution to that effect was adopted unanimously in the State Assembly to take up this issue for invoking Para 12A(b) of the Sixth Schedule in respect of the relevant clauses of MMDR Act, 1957, as amended. If the application of MMDR Act in respect of Meghalaya has to be taken up, it has also to be taken up with the Union Ministry of Mines, which involves lot of minerals in the relevant schedules, he said. As such the proposal by Mining & Geology was to mandate the department to deal exclusively on coal-related issues, so that this issue can be taken up appropriately and examined by relevant Ministries of the Union Government to ensure that no such situation crops up where because of the views of too many Ministries, the whole process would be delayed. The idea is to focus specifically on the issue of coal alone, and take up the issue of other minerals separately in respect of MMDR Act, 1957, he added. (MIPR)
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