Meghalaya HC seeks motion after 3,950 MT coal vanishes from depots

The lacking coal was highlighted within the thirty first interim report submitted to the courtroom on Thursday (July 24, 2025) by Justice B.P. Katakey, a retired choose appointed a number of years in the past to observe coal mining and transportation points in Meghalaya.

According to the report, the Meghalaya Basin Development Authority (MBDA) recorded 3,960.95 MT of coal on the designated depots in Diengngan and Rajaju villages a while in the past. Diengngan is within the Ri-Bhoi and Rajaju within the West Khasi Hills districts, respectively.

However, throughout a latest inspection by the district authorities, solely 2.5 MT of coal with residue was discovered as an alternative of the inventoried 1.839.03 MT.

Similarly, solely 8 MT of coal with residue was discovered on the Rajaju depot in opposition to 2,121.62 MT of coal recorded by the MBDA earlier. The lacking quantity labored out to three,950.15 MT.

In an order on Thursday (July 24, 2025), a division bench of Justice H.S. Thangkhiew and Justice W. Diengdoh mentioned it was a matter of concern that the illegally mined coal had been lifted and transported by unknown folks The courtroom directed the State authorities to “take pressing motion and maintain accountable the individuals or officers, beneath whose watch” this was allowed to occur. It additionally requested the federal government to hint the individuals who lifted the coal illegally.

The courtroom noticed that the federal government filed a standing report on the steps taken with regard to illegally mined coal in one other district (South Garo Hills) and the disappearance of coal from the 2 depots, however didn’t present any data aside from indicating that FIRs had been lodged.

The National Green Tribunal banned the hazardous rat-hole coal mining in April 2014, however organisations in Meghalaya declare this didn’t cease the unlawful mining and transportation of the fossil gasoline.

The ineffectiveness of the ban has been evident from a number of mishaps within the rat-hole mines, killing not less than 40 miners in over a decade. High wages draw miners, largely from Assam, to those mines.

Surveyors have additionally discovered that the amount of inventoried coal in some depots didn’t lower even after their public sale and transportation occasionally. This was as a result of the inventory continued to be replenished by coal mined freshly and illegally.