18,000 MT of illegal coal vanishes in M’laya; Katakey asks DCs to file FIRs

Correspondent

Shillong: In a revelation that underscores once again the deep rot in Meghalaya’s coal mining sector, Justice (Retd) B.P. Katakey has exposed that over 18,000 metric tonnes of illegally mined coal have mysteriously disappeared in East Jaintia Hills. Chairing a compliance review on his 32nd interim report, the one-man committee chief directed the Deputy Commissioner to immediately lodge FIRs and prepare a roadmap for corrective measures before his next review meeting on October 16. “I have directed the Deputy Commissioner to prepare a road map and submit the road map before my next meeting on October 16. In respect of 138 depots, there is a shortage of 18,289 MT in East Jaintia Hills District, and that is also a huge quantity. I have directed the Deputy Commissioner of East Jaintia Hills District to lodge an FIR against the missing coal also,” Katakey said.

The glaring mismatch between reported stock and actual ground verification further exposes the scale of irregularities. Garuda, the agency engaged to map illegal coal, had flagged nearly 1.8 lakh MT across multiple depots, but only 138 out of more than 1,500 identified coordinates were verified due to the monsoon. Even within this small sample, Katakey noted, “There was a shortage of 18,289 MT between the Garuda report and the verification done by the Deputy Commissioner.” The discrepancies do not end there. In South West Khasi Hills, the Meghalaya Basin Development Authority (MBDA) and district authorities reported different figures—333 MT in Diengngan village and 587 MT at Rajaju depot—together amounting to more than 900 MT of unaccounted coal. “That is illegally mined coal. I have directed the Deputy Commissioners to lodge the FIRs relating to that and directed the police to make necessary inquiry and investigation to find out the truth about where this quantity has gone,” Katakey asserted.

On the industrial front, Katakey came down heavily on non-compliant coke oven plants, ordering demolition of 33 such units—16 to 17 in East Jaintia Hills and the rest in South West Khasi Hills—in line with Supreme Court directives. “Because the Deputy Commissioner has to abide by the judgement passed by the Supreme Court… whoever does not comply with certain norms or their plant cannot be regularised, you should demolish it,” he emphasised. At the same time, he dismissed reports of unchecked mushrooming of coke units, clarifying, “On the last occasion, I had directed the Pollution Control Board to have the field verification; today they have submitted a report, and according to their report, there are no coke oven plants in any of the districts, particularly those four districts, other than coke oven plants which have required permissions. There is no report of mushrooming of coke plants in Meghalaya.”

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