The Meghalaya government has asked the cement companies in the State to pay ₹614 crore for using illegally-mined coal and evading tax.

Officials in the State could not provide specific data, but at least six private firms have cement plants across the coal and limestone belts of Meghalaya.

A government spokesperson said a notice was issued to the cement plants after the National Green Tribunal (NGT) had in December 2019 submitted a report directing the State government to realise ₹400 per tonne from the cement companies and their power subsidiaries. A reminder was set to these companies a few days ago.

The NGT also asked the State government to deposit the extracted money for “using illegally-mined coal” in the Meghalaya Environment Protection and Restoration Fund.

The NGT had in April 2014 banned hazardous rat-hole coal mining in Meghalaya and set a time limit for transporting the coal already mined till that time. Rat-hole is a term used for constricting tunnels that allow an adult to virtually crawl and scrape coal from the seams underneath.

The tribunal said that the cement companies and their power subsidiaries had purchased the illegally-mined coal in the name of slate, a non-fuel mineral, to get around the NGT ban on coal extracted from rat-hole mines.

The NGT also found the appetite of the cement plants for coal had sustained illegal rat-hole mining the State. The demand often made miners risk their lives, as was the case with the Ksan coal mine disaster that claimed at least 17 lives in December 2018.

The tribunal further asked the State government, Union Environment Ministry and the Meghalaya State Pollution Control Board to take legal action against the cement firms.

“The NGT report said the cement factory evaded ₹423 crore in royalty to the State government and tax before December 2019. The amount is now ₹614 crore,” the government spokesperson said.