SHILLONG, May 4 – Three prominent NGOs of the State have asked the Uranium Mining Corporation of India Limited (UCIL) to quit Meghalaya immediately. The Khasi Students’ Union (KSU), Meghalaya People’s Human Rights Commission (MPHRC) and the Hynniewtrep Environmental Site Protection Organisation (HESPO) have rejected the UCIL’s invitation for a debate on the proposed mining of uranium at Domiasiat in the West Khasi Hills district and instead asked the latter to pack up their bags and “get out of our land.”
The NGOs reiterated their decision to continue the movement against uranium mining in the Khasi and Jaintia Hills. The statement condemned the alleged “multi-pronged misinformation strategy being adopted by certain vested interests to confuse the public and undermine the principled stand taken against any form of uranium mining in the land of U Hynniewtrep (Khasi-Jaintia).” The movement against mining of uranium in the State had begun in 1992 with prominent organisations strongly in favour of declaring the Khasi-Jaintia Hills as a nuclear-free zone.
Subsequently, awareness campaigns on the hazards of uranium mining were held in various parts of the West Khasi Hills, which has rich deposits of uranium concentrated in the Domiasiat area. The UCIL authorities, however, maintain that mining of the mineral would actually boost the economy and develop infrastructure not only in the vicinity of the proposed mines but also of the State as a whole. The NGOs opposed to mining have alleged that on visiting the uranium-mining site at Jaduguda in Bihar they came across several victims of harmful radiation.
However, State Mining and Geology Minister Deborah Marak, who too was part of the same team that visited Jaduguda, maintained that there were no reports of radiation-induced health hazards in the area. The NGOs fear that the proposed mining of uranium would result in health and environmental degradation and also lead to large-scale influx of outsiders into the State.
Meanwhile, the State Government has reiterated that it would not allow mining of uranium till it is satisfied that such an exercise would neither harm the health of the people nor destroy the ecology.