acknowledgement on effect of mining in Meghalaya
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India’s National Green Tribunal in 2014 banned rat hole mining of coal and its transportation over concerns for the environment and labour conditions in the tribal-majority state of Meghalaya.
Rat hole mining of coal is an unscientific practice to extract coal through narrow tunnels into the ground. It has led to widespread pollution of rivers, deforestation and disruption of traditional values in society.
With extraction of coal tied to rights of indigenous communities over land, the ban was widely resented and challenged.
The road ahead is to restore the environmentally degraded areas and rehabilitate exploited labour force.
The attack on an activist in a coal belt in India’s northeast frontier state of Meghalaya has spotlighted the issue of ecological degradation from “rat hole mining” and the outlawed activities continuing in defiance of a ban on this unscientific sub-surface mining technique in the state.
In November, well-known Meghalaya activist Agnes Kharshiing and her companion were brutally assaulted in Meghalaya’s East Jaintia Hills district when she had reportedly visited the site to document alleged illegal rat hole coal mining despite the interim ban on it.