Meghalaya Chief Minister Conrad K Sangma today said his government will strive to strike a balance between economic activities and environment protection.
Speaking in the state Assembly, Sangma said, "I want to stress on the fact that this government realises the importance of the economic activity of coal mining in our state, and it is very important that this must continue."
The chief minister had met Coal Minister Piyush Goyal and PMO officials last week in Delhi, and moved the Centre to consider invoking Para 12 A (b) of the Sixth Schedule to the Constitution to exempt the state from applicable Central mining laws.
The Meghalaya Assembly had passed a resolution in this regard in 2015.
"We are also resolving today once again to continue working for this (pressing for the Centre's consideration). I assure that we are going to work towards it and find way forward in this particular case," the CM told the House.
Stating that the ban imposed on April 17, 2014 had affected inflow of Rs 4,000 crore coal trade, Sangma said it caused the state government Rs 700 crore royalty loss in a year.
He said that paper mills in Silchar which were dependent on coal from Meghalaya were also affected, apart from cement plants in the state, whose captive power facilities run on coal.
Sangma said that prior to 2014, environment protection measures were not properly undertaken, and this resulted in a number of rivers and waters getting contaminated.
"The sulphur content went up, paddy fields were affected and at the same time even the land that was used, there was no land reclamation done," he said.
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