The perils of the system of rat-hole mining that thousands in Meghalaya
routinely engage in were in stark focus over the past week. After a
fruitless search that yielded no survivors or bodies in a flooded coal
pit in the South Garo Hills, a rescue team of the National Disaster and
Rescue Force has called off its operations. This means the 15 miners who
were believed trapped underground are being given up as dead. It is the
failure of the authorities to put in place a monitoring and regulatory
mechanism that stands out in the wake of the accident. The miners,
desperate to make a living, typically scramble into the shafts, crudely
dug and so small that even kneeling is impossible inside. Lying
horizontally, they hack away with pick-axes and their bare hands to
extract the often sparse pickings. More shockingly, thousands of
children, some under 10, toil alongside adults, their small bodies a
perfect fit for the narrow seams. Many of the miners are migrants.
Instances of death, from cave-ins and other accidents, are not always
documented but are far from rare. Proximate facilities for medical care
are nonexistent. In 2002, over 30 people died in a rat-hole pit in
Meghalaya after it was flooded suddenly.
Meghalaya has no mining policy: minerals are extracted by individual
operators at will. Miners use rudimentary gear, and among other risks
face the black lung disease caused by the ingestion of coal dust. The
mines operate in the manner of an unorganised cottage industry. Most
land in Meghalaya is privately owned by tribal people, who as a matter
of customary right exploit the coal present in their parcels. The
villages located in the coal belt actually sit on a network of trenches
dug beneath. It is not as if the practice, coyote hole mining as it was
referred to in the Americas as it evolved from a 16th century Spanish
system, is inherently unsound. Such inexpensive excavation was
technologically simpler, and amenable to small-scale operation, compared
to the large-scale industrial-corporate mining that emerged in the 19th
century. Indeed, the low-tech approach was efficient in its own way,
calling for excavations to follow the meanderings of ore seams. It may
be neither possible nor advisable to move suddenly to end rat-hole
mining in this region. Coal is Meghalaya’s biggest source of revenue.
What is needed immediately is a scientifically sound regulatory
mechanism to optimise yields and make the operation more efficient.
Labour laws have to be enforced, worker safety and payment of fair wages
ensured, and child labour of any kind has to be eliminated. The miners
should be provided training and made aware of the risks, and put through
safety drills.