January 18, 2022 - Shillongtoday

Shillong, Jan 18: Deputy Chief Minister, Prestone Tynsong on Tuesday questioned why the opposition wants a ‘court monitored probe’ into the alleged coal mining in the State.

“I don’t know why the LO (Leader of Opposition Dr. Mukul Sangma) says that you need again another body to go in depth into this alleged illegal mining in Meghalaya. The NGT (National Green Tribunal) is monitoring on a regular basis about the illegal mining activities,” Tynsong said.

The Deputy Chief Minister said that in fact the system is already in place with a SIT already constituted by the NGT.

He also said that the State government is committed to make sure that there is no illegal mining activities after the NGT banned coal mining in Meghalaya in 2014.

“From that time itself the government the then and also the present one, we are committed to make sure that illegal mining of coal does not happen in the State,” Tynsong said.

It may be mentioned that former Chief Minister and All India Trinamool Congress (AITC) leader Dr. Sangma has demanded a court-monitored investigation into the alleged rampant illegal coal mining and transportation in Meghalaya.

On Monday, he had visited the coal belt of South Garo Hills following inputs from various local residents and his party MDCs on illegal mining and transportation of the mineral taking place at a wanton level.

Shillong, Jan 18: Deputy Chief Minister, Prestone Tynsong on Tuesday informed that in case of settling the Meghalaya and Assam border dispute, there is no need to go to the Parliament to amend the North-Eastern Areas (Reorganisation) Act, 1971.

“In the case of Meghalaya and Assam this is an internal arrangement between both the States, and once final decision is taken what we want to do is to only involve the Survey of India where they will give us all the actual and detail demarcation of the boundary for both States,” Tynsong.

The Deputy Chief Minister said that this will be at a later stage but the intention of the governments of Meghalaya and Assam is to first decide from which edge belongs to Assam and which to Meghalaya.

It may be mentioned that on Monday Chief Minister, Conrad Sangma met with his Assam counterpart Himanta Biswa Sarma.

Tynsong also termed the push for a final resolution of the long-pending interstate boundary dispute with Assam as the biggest achievement ever.

“On January 21 we are going to celebrate the Golden Jubilee (year of statehood). If you go back to the history no governments has taken this initiative upto this level,” the Deputy Chief Minister said.

According to him this is the first ever governments of both Assam and Meghalaya who has taken this initiative very seriously.

“I would give full credit to both the Chief Ministers, just because of their decisiveness we reached to this level,” Tynsong added.

He also said that soon both the Chief Ministers of Meghalaya and Assam will be going to New Delhi to meet Union Home Minister, Amit Shah.