Shillong, Mar 17: In a historic moment for Meghalaya, the state’s first scientific mining coal block was inaugurated at the ‘Saryngkham-A’ Coal Mine in East Jaintia Hills District.

Chief Minister Conrad K Sangma launched the project via video conferencing, marking a significant milestone in the state’s efforts to transition from unscientific “rat-hole mining” to more sustainable practices.

Addressing the gathering, the Meghalaya Chief Minister, congratulated all concerned stakeholders including officials, mine owners, other mining lease applicants, and the owner of this particular mining lease, namely Dapmain Shylla of Byndihati who has all contributed to making scientific mining in the state of Meghalaya a reality while also stating that the last 10 to 11 years have been one of the most difficult years for a lot of the citizens of the state especially those who are directly and indirectly connected with the coal industry who went through great financial hardships.

Sangma recalled that in 2018 when he became the Chief Minister for the first time, leading the MDA Government, the issue of the coal mining ban was accorded top priority by the government with the hard work in the last six to seven years having yielded fruits through the inauguration of the 1st Scientific Mining Coal Block in Meghalaya.

“The journey wasn’t so easy. The journey wasn’t very clear. It was like moving through uncharted territory, not knowing what challenge would come up in front of us while we moved forward, what kept us going was to see that the difficulties that our people were going through, we must find a way to resolve this and bring back normalcy for our people and our citizens, and that’s what drove us”, he said.

The Chief Minister also said that the process of ensuring that other applicants receive the same mining permissions and are able to start mining in a scientific manner is on.

“It is always complicated and difficult for the first one or two or three of them, because they are moving in uncharted territory, not knowing what challenges may suddenly crop up and delay the process, but now that there has already been somebody who has moved and seen everything, it is now going to be easier for others who are behind now to move forward, because they have shown the way, they have cleared the way and they have managed to now show to others that this is how we have to follow the procedure”, he said.

The Chief Minister also said that Meghalaya had many challenges, apart from the technological aspect, we have land rights and land holding systems that are very different from the rest of the country, and hence different kinds of provisions, different kinds of challenges came up in order for us to be able to make this particular mining a possibility and hence it took more time than we expected.

Sangma said further that with the inauguration of the first scientific mining, in the future there will be many more that will follow and reiterated that the government will encourage others to also apply so that this can become a normal procedure. among all stakeholders.