by admin | May 25, 2021 | News
New Delhi : The Supreme Court on Friday asked what action has been taken against the owner of the illegal coal mine located in East Jaintia Hills district in Meghalaya in which 15 miners are trapped since December 13.
“What you have done against the person who was indulging in illegal mining? What about the officials who were conniving in the illegal mining,” asked Justice A.K. Sikri as senior counsel Anand Grover told the court that a number of agencies, both governmental and private, are offering assistance in rescue operations but there is no coordinating authority to take decisions.
Other judge on the bench is Justice S. Abdul Nazeer.
The court said that it would deal with the aspect of illegal mining later as Solicitor General Tushar Mehta said that the entire operation of illegal mining could not have been without connivance of officials.
Grover, appearing for PIL petitioner Aditya N. Prasad, told the court that due to lack of coordination and also some hurdles being faced by the teams engaged in rescue operations and working on the site, the desired results are not there.
He said that the Hyderabad-based National Geophysical Research Institute (NGRI), Roorkee-based National Institute of Hydrology (NIH) and some other private research institutions including Chennai’s Planys Technology need to be associated in the rescue operations.
The court was also told that the Indian Air Force help is needed to lift heavy equipment to the spot hit by tragedy.
Solicitor General Mehta told the court that despite their best efforts with the high-power pumps of Kirloskars, Coal India Ltd and that of the Meghalaya government pumping out the water, the water level has gone down by just eight inches as more and more water is coming from adjoining Lytein river.
Mehta said all the agencies named by petitioner Prasad have already been contacted by the government and everything possible is being done to augment the rescue operations.
The court was told that the operations is facing difficulty as water in the mine is muddy.
As the Solicitor General projected the difficulties in pumping out the water, the court wondered how the owner of the mine was handling the problem of pumping out the water.
The court listed the matter for January 18 for further hearing.
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | News, Politics
Shillong : Normal life came to a standstill in Meghalaya on Tuesday during a dawn-to-dusk shutdown called by the North East Students Organisation (NESO) in protest against the Modi government’s move to go ahead with the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, 2016.
The BJP-backed Sangma government in Meghalaya had said that it will not support the controversial Citizenship Bill that seeks to give citizenship to illegal migrants of six religious minority groups from Bangladesh, Pakistan and Afghanistan.
Almost all government establishments and educational institutions remained closed across the state. Public transport went off the roads.
“Thin attendance was recorded in government offices,” an official said.
NESO supporters blocked roads with boulders and burnt tyres in several parts of the state. There were also reports of some vehicles being vandalized.
National Highway No. 40 and 44, the lifeline for landlocked Mizoram, Tripura and parts of Manipur and Assam, were also affected by the shutdown.
“There were no reports of any major incidents from any part of the state,” Director General of Police R. Chandranathan told IANS.
“There is no confusion about our stand. We were the first state government and cabinet to come out with an official resolution that we are against the bill,” Meghalaya Chief Minister Conrad Sangma told journalists on Monday night.
Asked if the National People’s Party will put out of the BJP-led NDA government, the NPP Chief said: “We have been very clear to the NDA that this is something we will not support. We will see when the time comes, but as of now, we have made our stand clear that we are not supporting the Bill.”
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | News, Politics
Shillong : Meghalaya Chief Minister Mukul Sangma on Thursday thanked Prime Minister Narendra Modi for replicating the Megha Health Insurance Scheme, one of the flagship programme launched by the state’s Congress government, on the national level.
In his Budget 2018-19 speech on Thursday, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley announced a flagship National Health Protection Scheme under which Rs 5 lakh cover will be provided per year to 10 crore poor and vulnerable families in the country.
“The Central government in fact invited the State government to present this exemplary health initiative to other states. I must thank him (Prime Minister) for replicating the scheme,” Sangma told IANS over phone.
Noting that Megha Health Insurance Scheme is one of the transformations in the state’s health sector, he said: “There is no programme as inclusive as ours. Our scheme did not confined only to BPL (Below Poverty Line) families, but we extended it to everybody….”
“Not just this health scheme, we have one of the best Intensive Care Units in government Ganesh Das hospital and Tura hospital. We have made it slow but steady progress in health care sector. And the most important is that we have been able to take care of the expenditure for the medical treatment,” he added.
On Modi’s allegation about the state’s “poor” health sector, Sangma said that “it was unfortunate for the Prime Minister… obviously because he did not do his homework properly”.
The Chief Minister also exuded confidence that his party will retain power in Meghalaya, while saying the results of the Rajasthan bypolls where the party wrested two parliamentary and one assembly seat from the ruling BJP an indication “people’s actual anger and frustration” against the BJP and a sign that Congress will return to power in the 2019 general elections.
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | News, Politics
Mukul Sangma
Shillong : Slamming RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat’s remark that “anybody living in India is a Hindu”, Meghalaya Chief Minister Mukul Sangma on Tuesday said “India is a secular, democratic country and secularism is part of our constitution”.
“Their agenda is only to divide the Indian people on lines of religion and create communal tension. His statement (made in Tripura) is loud and clear that the motive is to that. We really need to ponder,” Sangma told IANS.
“It is totally unacceptable to say that anybody living in India is a Hindu. The whole world knows that India is a secular, democratic country and secularism is part of our constitution,” the veteran Congress leader said.
Sangma said that the nation must not allow such divisive forces to spread communalism as it is dangerous and pose a threat to India.
“Our secular ideals are under threat because of the ideology of Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). We cannot allow these divisive forces to further penetrate and it is dangerous for any nation to be dictated by such forces,” he said.
Charging the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government at the Centre of imposing the RSS agenda, Sangma said: “They (Modi government) have been driven by the RSS agenda and this government is implementing them.”
“Ever since they came to power, they have been implementing RSS ideology. It is time for people to be blunt and frank and express their concern,” the Congress leader said.
Sangma also said the Congress is firm and ready to defend the secular fabric of India.
“We should not lose focus. One after another, the hidden agenda of the BJP has come out. We should be able to properly articulate… and be ready to defend the future of this nation,” Sangma said.
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | News, Politics
Guwahati-Shillong Road
By Rupesh Dutta,
New Delhi : Even as the Centre aspires to improve connectivity in the northeast under its Act East Policy, the two-laning of a crucial 43-km highway is hanging fire as Meghalaya’s Khasi Autonomous District Council (KHADC) has delayed its nod for acquiring land for the project.
The project, worth almost Rs 500 crore, will, once completed, ease trade and travel to the Indo-Bangladesh border. It has been pending for the last three years.
While the Meghalaya government has permitted the central government-run NHIDCL (National Highways & Infrastructure Development Corporation Limited) to perform civil works on the stretch from Nongstoin to Wahkaji, this cannot begin till there is a NOC (No Objection Certificate) from the KHADC, a powerful autonomous body led by Meghalaya’s assertive Khasi tribe.
Earlier, on the same issue, an 18-km stretch from Wahkaji to the Mawthabah, a uranium-rich area, was deleted from the main project.
However, the stretch being a spur from Wahkaji, the project will be taken up after the NOC is issued.
According to documents on the project’s status, the work on two-laning the stretch had been awarded at the lowest bid of Rs 350.11 crore of M/s BSCPL Infra Ltd on October 31, 2014.
However, the work was transferred to NHIDCL on July 17, 2015. A number of attempts were made without success to obtain the NOC and so the contract awarded to M/s BSCPL Infra was withdrawn on September 8, 2016.
Sources in the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways (MORTH) said that while many letters have been written to the Meghalaya government, there has been no concrete reply on the project, which is part of the government’s Special Accelerated Road Development Programme in North East (SARDP-NE) project.
“Many a times the matter has been taken up with Meghalaya’s Chief Secretary. Land acquisition for the stretch is immediately needed and the local residents have given their consent for it. However, the KHADC was not issuing the NOC, leading to cancellation of agreement (with the contractor),” a source in the ministry told IANS.
The need for the NOC becomes mandatory under the Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Act, 2013. It states that in case of acquisition or alienation of any land in the scheduled areas, the prior consent of the concerned Gram Sabha/ Panchayat/Autonomous District Councils …under the fifth schedule of the constitution, shall be obtained in all the cases.
However, the KHADC says it is planning to give the NOC very soon and the delay was caused by some NGOs expressing concern over environmental damage to the uranium-rich Domiasiat area.
“The delay in giving the NOC was due to some NGOs having concern over the Domiasiat area which is rich in Uranium. However, we are planning to finalise the matter during our next meeting,” KHADC Chairman L. Nongsiej told IANS.
The KHADC is ready to cooperate with the state bodies on the road project, Nongsiej added.
Currently, Meghalaya, which shares a 443 km border with Bangladesh, does not have any other road project ready to be executed under the Centre’s monitoring. NHIDCL has meanwhile initiated the process of re-inviting bids for the Nongstoin-Wahkaji section with the reduced length of 43.06 km.
(Rupesh Dutta can be contacted at Rupesh.d@ians.in)
—IANS
