Senior BJP legislator AL Hek on Thursday expressed apprehension that despite centre approving the geological reports submitted by four miners, the illegal mining of coal will still continue in the state.
Talking to reporters in Shillong, Hek stressed on the need to have a legal scientific way of mining in the state.
“….scientific mining will be continuing along with the illegal mining, this may happen in the state of Meghalaya since illegal mining has been happening, recently we have seen again an incident that happened at a mining area where three miners lost their lives,” the BJP leader expressed his apprehension.
He also said there is a need for the state to go for scientific mining, illegalities cannot continue as there are a lot of risk factors be it environment or risk to the miners involved in the illegal mining of coal in the state.
Clarifying despite promised made in the election manifesto of BJP that within 180 days the legal mining will start in the state, the BJP legislator said, “In 2018 we have asked the mandate of the people, had the people gave mandate to the BJP in 2018, long time back the legal mining of coal would have started, since the people have not given the mandate, but even then the geological approval for the legal mining is given.”
“So we don’t want illegal mining to take place in Meghalaya, we want legal mining in a scientific way,” he added.
Hinting at the Chief Minister Conrad Sangma’s recent press conference wherein the state government took the credit of the Ministry of Coal finally giving the state government in writing the approval on the geological reports submitted by four miners.
“ High level taking advantage not only of mining but they take advantage in all the activities in the state of Meghalaya, the high level,” Hek said.
Asked, he added, “Everyone knows in Meghalaya we don’t need to go in detail about the ‘high-level’.