SHILLONG, MAR 6: Chief Minister Conrad K Sangma on Tuesday said the NPP-led Meghalaya Democratic Alliance (MDA) government would take up with the Centre government to ensure that the ongoing NGT ban on coal mining in the state is resolved.
Sangma also said that the government would also follow up on the resolution passed by the Assembly that urged the Centre to invoke Para 12 A (b) of the Sixth Schedule through a presidential notification to exempt the state from the provisions of central laws.
“We are going to talk to the Government of India and try to resolve this issue but this is a very important part and will try to get this resolution to move,” he told journalists here after assuming office.
Informing that he had also spoken to Union Minister Piyush Vedprakash Goyal while inviting him to attend the swearing in ceremony of the new government, Conrad said the union minister had asked him to come to Delhi and work together to find the solution.
“We are already getting positive vibes from the Government of India but there are challenges and hurdles in this and it will be quite an exhaustive but I hope will be able to come up with a solution on this,” he added.
Earlier through the resolution, the Congress-led MUA-II government had sought the operation part of the Coal Mines (Nationalization) Act, 1973 and Mines and Mineral (Development and Regulation) Act to be exempted in the Scheduled areas of the state.
Admitting that the resolution is a very important part of the solution process, he said the Para 12 A (b) allows the president to exempt Sixth Schedule areas from any national policy or act of parliament.
“However, there is a challenge out there because it is related to the Coal Mines (Nationalization) Act and we need to invoke Para 12 A (b) to ensure that we are kind of exempted in one way,” he said.
Stating that coal ban issue is important to his government, he said that in fact most of the MLAs as well as cabinet ministers are also concern about this issue.
“We have discussed this issue in details many times. This issue is not new to us as you all know it is a complicated affair. There are issues related to the environment, safety of miners, policy of mining, ownership of the mines, it is a multilayered problem and there are different departments dealing with this problem specifically,” he said.
“It is important for us the government to be the nodal point which will ensure that we move with the different departments and try to resolve these issues one by one,” he added.
Asked that the BJP had assured to resolve the issue within 180 days in its election document, the chief minister however said that he has not read the manifesto of the BJP and was not part of drafting the same.
“This (question) you will have to ask them (BJP) but it is a process and not a timeline, but I can tell you that there will be an aggressive effort to find a solution to this and we will try our best to move things as soon as possible,” he said.
On the inter-state boundary dispute with Assam, Conrad said his government will try and find solution to the problem.
“It is definitely part of our agenda also. Having said that, let there be a process and amicable solution to it but I would not want to spoil relationship with our neighbouring state, we want to make sure development is given priority but these are issues and agenda that are in our priority list and we will try and work and find solutions to all these,” he said.
By Our Reporter
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