Staff Reporter
Shillong, Sept 12: The State government has taken up with the Centre for reducing a hundred hectares of land as a minimum requirement for granting prospecting licenses and mining leases in the state.
This was after different miner organizations demanded an immediate review of the standard operating procedures (SOPs) for granting prospecting licenses and mining leases for coal mining in the state.
“Based on the different miner organizations appealing that it should be reduced, we have taken up the matter with the Government of India. The process is already on but we have not reached a conclusion yet but it is going on in the right direction,” Sangma told reporters.
He said when the State was fighting in the Supreme Court against the NGT ban on coal mining a discussion also took place with the Government of India (GOI).
“While these negotiations were going on, the area issue came up and the GOI was very particular that the number (100 hectares) should not go down and so we felt that in the larger interest of at least setting the ball rolling and starting the whole thing of mining happening, let us not stick too much to this 100 hectares issue as of now, let it start and once things start then in the next stage we can come and discuss for the reduction of the area because GOI was not at that point of time comfortable at reducing it. (We say) Okay fine but let us at least start with 100 hectares and then later on if necessary, we will try to work to reduce it,” Sangma said adding that in the interest of ensuring that mining started in the state, the government went ahead with the proposal.
Stating that Meghalaya’s case was very unique, Sangma said the State was having so much difficulty in reaching to a conclusion because of the unique land holding system.
“In other areas, the government owns the land, the government owns the mines and then leases it out to a private party but here the private party owns the land and now the government is acting as an agency to lease it out again to another individual to then mine it. So the government now has to change the rules based on Meghalaya’s land-holding system out here and that is where the complication came up. However, now we are in a stage where we have overcome that and that’s what has taken a lot of time but as I said all the hard work put in has given us positive results and I hope even this 100 hectares will be resolved,” he added.
Further, the chief minister informed that the mining plan for starting scientific mining are in the final stage of getting the approval of the Centre.
“I am happy that it has worked and we are now at the final stage of getting the mining plan approved and the mining will start,” he said.
He said the mining plans of four agencies which have already received the NOC concerned from the Centre government are being approved.
“So we expect the mining plan to get a final clearance. I can’t remember the name of the agency whether it is IBM or CMPDI – but one of the technical agencies after ensuring that their lease and all those aspects have already been clear, the final stage of that plan which was to submitted by them is being vetted as we speak and I expect in a matter of weeks or a month or so that we will actually see things happening in the ground,” the CM added.