CONCEPT – RAT-HOLE MINING

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CONCEPT – RAT-HOLE MINING

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• What is rat hole mining? It involves digging of very small tunnels, usually only 3-5 feet high, which workers (including children) enter and extract coal.
• Two types: Rat-hole mining is broadly of two types. In side-cutting procedure, narrow tunnels are dug on the hill slopes and workers go inside until they find the coal seam. The coal seam in some hills may be very thin. In the second type, called box-cutting, a rectangular opening is made, varying from 10 to 100 sq m, and through that is dug a vertical pit, 100 to 400 feet deep. Once the coal seam is found, rat-hole-sized tunnels are dug horizontally through which workers can extract the coal.
• Banned in India: The National Green Tribunal (NGT) banned it in 2014, and retained the ban in 2015, on grounds of it being unscientific and unsafe for workers. The state government has appealed the order in the Supreme Court. In their petition to the NGT, Assam’s All Dimasa Students’ Union and the Dima Hasao District Committee had complained that rat-hole mining in Meghalaya had caused the water in the Kopili river (it flows through Meghalaya and Assam) to turn acidic. The NGT order said that “Entire roadsides in and around mining areas are used for piling of coal which is a major source of air, water and soil pollution. Off road movement of trucks and other vehicles in the area causes further damage to the ecology of the area.”
• Still done as there’s no other way: When the NGT ban was ordered, Meghalayas’s annual coal production was nearly 6 million tonnes, almost all of it perhaps through rat-hole mining! Actually, no other method would be economically viable in Meghalaya, where the coal seam is extremely thin. Removal of rocks from the hilly terrain and putting up pillars inside the mine to prevent collapse would be costlier. In Jharkhand, the coal layer is extremely thick, allowing for open-cast mining.
• When is mining illegal? The NGT order bans not only rat-hole mining but all “unscientific and illegal mining”. The state has in place the Meghalaya Mines and Mineral Policy, 2012, while clearances and permissions are required under central laws including the Mines and Minerals (Regulation & Development) Act. When the Meghalaya police arrested the main accused in the mine collapse case, he was charged under sections including MMRD Act section 21(1), which deals with penalties for mining without permission.
• Sixth schedule: The 6th Schedule of the Constitution intends to protect the community’s ownership over its land and the community’s autonomy and consent over its nature of use. Coal mining currently underway in Meghalaya was a corruption of this Constitutional Provision wherein private individuals having private interests in earning monetary benefits from minerals vested under the land are engaging in coal mining and are attempting to legitimize this act by claiming immunity through tribal autonomy over land ownership, whereas the truth is that the land belongs to the community and not even to the individual.

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