More than 15 days have elapsed since 15 miners were trapped in an illegal coal mine located at Kasan in East Jaintia Hills of Meghalaya. Whatever, the hope the families of the trapped miners, who were the breadwinners, had also had eclipsed as the NDRF had almost abandoned the rescue operation since the mines are flooded by the waters of the nearby Lytein river and the pumps the rescue personnel have to suck water out of the mine are useless since they were of lower capacity. The NDRF team in the initial days itself had pleaded for heavy pumps but the concerned authorities including the state government and the Coal India Ltd., which have all required mining equipments in Upper Assam’s coalfields run by it, did not heed to the pleas. After 15 days, now suddenly everyone has woken up and CIL is ready to supply the pumps.  

It is a sad commentary to make that while our 24x7 prime time chat shows had devoted a lot of time on the rescue of a a dozen boys trapped in a Thailand cave, there has been hardly any debate or usual hullabaloo on TV shows. That is because, the trapped are the most underprivileged sections of  society and it happened in the North East which does not evoke much response unless there is some militant killings.  But the questions unanswered are how come mining is continuing in Meghalaya when there is clear ban order from National Green Tribunal and the Supreme Court? There is no denying the fact that the coal mafia is very active in Meghalaya. Since the coal is located deep, the rat hole mining is carried out unlike the open pit mining in Upper Assam. Often, young children are employed to crawl through these rat holes. 

There should be lessons for Arunachal too since in many parts of Eastern Arunachal Pradesh huge reserves of coal have been found. Since the owners of the land are the real owners of this resource, there is a danger of unscientific mining as is happening in Meghalaya and in Assam’s Karbi Anglong district where coal mafia is destroying the reserve forests.