GUWAHATI
More than a fortnight after nine miners were trapped in a flooded rat-hole coal mine in central Assam’s Dima Hasao district bordering Meghalaya, the focus has shifted to similar illegal operations in the eastern part of the State, along the border with Arunachal Pradesh.
Rescue workers retrieved the bodies of four miners, one of them from Nepal, from the 90-metre mine in Dima Hasao’s Umrangso area.
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Environment and rights activists based in the Tinsukia districts said they had been trying for more than a decade to draw the attention of the State government to “rampant illegal rat-hole” coal mining in the Ledo-Margherita region. They said the illegal activities would have been swept under the carpet had the Dima Hasao mine mishap not occurred.
“In March 2019, Assam’s Geology and Mining Department wrote to Tinsukia’s Deputy Commissioner and Superintendent of Police seeking action against 19 people accused of illegal operations and coal theft,” L. Ratan Singh, general secretary of the district unit of the International Human Rights Council, said.
He said his organisation had set a deadline for the authorities to “strike while the iron is hot” and catch the 19 illegal operators moving about freely.
The rights group’s demand to arrest all illegal miners followed the exodus of hundreds of migrant workers from the Ledo-Margherita areas since the Assam government began sealing rat-hole coal mines about a week ago. The Tinsukia district authorities said a dozen mines had been sealed in the Ledo-Margherita area, where a Coal India Limited subsidiary operates opencast mines.
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“We investigated the coal belt recently and documented 20 illegal mining sites, which contrasts sharply with the district administration and police’s inability to detect the illegal locations. We have also identified the financial backers of these illegal mines,” Mr. Singh said.
The rights group also wrote to Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma, highlighting specific mining locations and emphasising the need to stop about 250 illegal operations.
