Meghalaya CM asked to reside in Uranium-rich areas 

Shillong, Sep 10 : Chief Minister DD Lapang and his cabinet colleagues have been asked to reside in Meghalaya's Uranium-rich deposits of West Khasi Hills district to convince people that there is no health hazard through Uranium mining. 

''The chief minister and his council of ministers should take the initiative by settling with their family members in Uranium-rich areas to convince the public of the government's claim that the proposed uranium project would not cause health and environmental hazards,'' said Mait Shaphrang Movement president Michael Syiem. 

Several anti-Uranium groups, including the Hill State People’s Democratic Party (HSPDP), an ally of the Congress-led Meghalaya United Alliance coalition government opposed the proposed open-cast Uranium mining citing health and environment hazards. 

Lashing out at the MUA government for leasing out 422 hectares of land in West Khasi Hills to Uranium Corporation of India Limited (UCIL) for 30 years for development projects, Mr Syiem said the UCIL projects would not help development of backward West Khasi Hills district but would be hazardous to the people of the area. 

However, Chief Minister D D Lapang said that the decision of allowing the UCIL to lease land was purely for its development activities in West Khasi and not for mining of uranium. 

Under the pre-project development, UCIL would undertake building up of roads, schools, hospital and other infrastructure in this improvised district at an estimated cost of Rs 209 crore at the initial stage. 

The UCIL had proposed a Rs 1,046 crore open-cast uranium mining and processing plant at Mawthabah in the West Khasi Hills district which has an estimated deposit of 9.22 million tonne of uranium ore. 

However, the UCIL had failed to garner support for the project, with several NGOs and anti-mining civil and human rights groups opposing the proposed mining.