As many as 75,000 metric tons of assessed coal in East Jaintia Hills is yet to be transported to the designated depot.
This was informed by Justice (retired) B P Katakey, who heads the single member committee constituted by the Meghalaya High Court to monitor the disposal of the mined coal and curb illegal mining.
Speaking to media persons here today after holding a review meeting with officials of the State government, Katakey said that he has directed the East Jaintia Hills district administration to complete the transportation of the coal to the designated depot within 15 days.
According to Katakey, except East Jaintia Hills, other districts like West Khasi Hills, South West Khasi Hills and South Garo Hills have almost completed the transportation process.
East Jaintia Hills which has the highest amount of coal earlier had 1.3 lakh tons of coal which was left to be transported. Recently, authorities in the district have transported almost over 60,000 metric ton and around 70,000 tons of the remaining coal is yet to be transported to the designated depot.
“There may be two reasons for this. One is that coal owners are not interested or another reason could be that the coal presently is not available because it is already sold out not by the Coal India Limited (CIL) but by the coal owners themselves. So therefore that has to be verified and after verification, whether it is 70,000 metric tons or less than that it has to be transported to the designated depot,” Katakey explained.
During the meeting, the deputy commissioner of East Jaintia Hills has been asked to verify the existence of the quantity of 70,000 tons of coal which has not been transported to the designated depots by the coal miners, because there may be possibilities of such quantity not being true.
Meanwhile, the Deputy Commissioner of South West Khasi Hills also informed Katakey that the remaining 5,000 tons of assessed coal in the district will be transported to the designated depot by tomorrow.
It may be mentioned that on March 14, the Meghalaya High Court gave an order allowing 45 days to transport the remaining quantity of reassessed coal to either to the designated depot or to a temporary depot that could be identified by the government.
Katakey also expressed disappointment that most of the coal put to auction was sold, but the measured quantity of the coal is yet to be lifted since the auction purchasers are citing that the market is down.
“Since the process of auction is time consuming and also out of the sale profit some amount has to be paid to the Coal India limited as well as the agency conducting the auction. I have allowed the government to extend the time for payment of bid value by the successful bidder,” he added.
It may be mentioned that the Katakey committee was able to verify and re-assess around 14 lakh tons of coal and not 32 lakh tons as stated in the affidavit filed by the State government before the Supreme Court.
Katakey said that whatever coal found after the transportation of the 14 lakh tons would be considered as illegally mined coal which would be seized and auctioned and that the proceeds from the auction would go only to the State exchequer.
So far 5, 88,956 tons of coal has been sold through auction but the full payment in respect of only 1,48,353 tons has been made. This means that the bidders are yet to make the payment of almost 4, 40,000 tons sold in auction citing that the coal market is down.
