CORRESPONDENT
SHILLONG: Amid renewed concerns over the safeguarding of illegally mined coal in Meghalaya’s East Jaintia Hills district, Justice B.P. Katakey (Retired), appointed by the Meghalaya High Court to head the committee monitoring coal transportation and allied matters, has raised a serious alarm over the possible disappearance of coal lying in open dumps and directed the district administration to immediately shift 1.43 lakh metric tonnes to Coal India Limited designated depots.
The warning follows a troubling mismatch between aerial survey data and subsequent ground verification, bringing into sharp focus the continued risks surrounding unsecured coal dumps despite ongoing judicial oversight.
Justice Katakey pointed out that an earlier aerial survey conducted by Garuda UAV had detected more than 1.8 lakh metric tonnes of coal spread across 1,572 dumps in the East Jaintia Hills district. However, when the district administration carried out physical verification of these sites, only a little over 1.43 lakh metric tonnes of coal could be traced, leaving nearly 36,000 to 37,000 metric tonnes unaccounted for. FIRs have already been registered in connection with the missing coal, and investigations are currently underway. Stressing the magnitude of the issue, Justice Katakey noted that the 1,572 coal dumps identified in East Jaintia Hills are separate from inventoried coal and are required to be transported exclusively to designated depots. While the exercise of reaching out to dumps identified by Garuda UAV extended across four districts, he said the East Jaintia Hills district administration has completed this task.
“I have instructed the East Jaintia Hills District Administration to first reach out to those 1,572 coal dumps. They have completed that exercise. As I have mentioned, the Garuda UAV identified 1,572 coal dumps in the East Jaintia Hills District, containing over 1.8 lakh metric tonnes of coal. However, on physical verification, they found a little over 1.43 lakh metric tonnes of coal, and now the next step would be for the transportation of these 1.43 lakh metric tonnes of coal to the designated depots because in CIL-designated depots there is space where this illegally mined coal can be transported and accommodated. Unless we transport coal to the designated depots, there is a possibility of disappearance of this 1.43 lakh metric tonnes of coal. This is illegally mined coal, no doubt about it,” Justice Katakey said.
Underlining the urgency of the directive, he further stated, “I have asked the District Administrations to transport these coals to the designated depots as fast as possible.”
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