Meghalaya has refused to renew a mining lease to the Coal India Limited, leaving the government run mining enterprise without any work in the state.

Coal ministry said that “In Meghalaya, the only lease held by North Eastern Coalfields Limited a CIL subsidiary, pertained to Simsang mines. But it expired in 2008 and its renewal is yet to be received from the state of Meghalaya. In the absence of renewal of lease, at present no more mines has been planned to be opened by NEC.”

It said that “In Meghalaya, coal is being produced only by the local people as per the extant customary and tribal land rights.”

The ministry made the revelation of Meghalaya's refusal to renew its mining lease to CIL in a statement on total coal resources in the northeast region.

The statement said that as per Geological Survey of India's latest inventory of the geological resources of coal in the country, 1,471 million tonnes of geological resources of coal have so far been estimated in the northeast region.

(Sourced from sify.com)