Shillong, May 12: Former cabinet minister and UDP legislator from Khliehriat, Kyrmen Shylla, has urged the state government to introduce scientific underground mining as open-cast methods are “unviable”.
Speaking to reporters on Monday, Shylla said development must be matched with protection of livelihoods and that economy of East Jaintia Hills region depends on coal.
“In East Jaintia Hills, we appreciate development but more than that we need our livelihood. Our livelihood stands on coal,” Shylla told reporters.
He said voters would back any party that safeguards that livelihood.
“If there is a time that a party, any party, who could promise and deliver, I believe my people will stand with that,” he said. “If somebody does good to us, we repay them back with good things.”
Shylla argued that scientific mining should not be equated only with open-cast operations, which he said are not feasible in the district due to deep coal seams.
“Scientific doesn’t mean only open cast. It even means underground mining,” he said.
“The technology we have used all these days, though not 100 percent scientific, has had some science introduced. We just need to bring it into a proper way of mining and bring safety measures for miners,” he added.
He said open-cast mining cannot work in East Jaintia Hills. “Open cast is quite difficult because the seam is quite deep down. When the depth is too high it is next to impossible,” Shylla said.
“If within 10 meters, it’s still feasible for open cast. But here it is more than 10 meters, sometimes even 100 meters. So, this is not possible.”
While a few open-cast licenses have been issued and work has started in some blocks, he said owners are facing “lots of challenges” and the activity has not yet benefited people.
“Those who have got licenses know the reality of it. And as of now we have not seen that this (open-cast mining) contributes to the people,” he said.
Shylla called on the government to allow regulated underground mining. “That’s why we request the government and the authorities to give us a different way of mining,” he said.
“Previously what we call rat-hole mining, when we look into different Acts, a few changes need to be done. The same way of mining, if it can be introduced, we can call it underground mining.” “For us the most feasible mining is underground mining,” he said.
“We need experts to give us suggestions so that we can prepare what needs to be done and the government will give us the rights to go ahead with underground mining.”
He maintained that protecting miners and the environment is central to scientific mining.
“When you do something to protect the livelihood, to protect the lives of the miners and to extract coal in a proper way and help the environment, that is (the kind of) scientific (mining we want),” Shylla said.
