In India, 'rat-hole mining' of coal has been widely practised in which state?

Rat-hole mining is a primitive and dangerous method of coal mining that was widely practised in Meghalaya, especially in the Jaintia Hills, as well as in the Khasi and Garo hills.

What is rat-hole mining?

It involves digging very narrow tunnels, usually only 3 to 4 feet high, into hillsides or from the bottom of a vertical pit, to reach thin coal seams.

The tunnels are so small that workers (often including children in the past) must crawl into them, which is why it is called "rat-hole" mining.

There are two types:

• Side-cutting: narrow tunnels dug into the side of a hill to follow a coal seam.
• Box-cutting: a deep vertical pit is dug, and then tunnels are dug sideways from its base along the seam.

Why it was practised in Meghalaya:

• The coal seams in Meghalaya are very thin (often less than 2 metres), so large-scale mechanised mining is not economical.
• Land in Meghalaya is largely owned by communities and individuals under the Sixth Schedule of the Constitution, and mining was carried out privately on a small scale.

Problems:

• It is extremely unsafe, with frequent deaths from flooding, cave-ins and suffocation.
• In December 2018, 15 miners were trapped in a flooded rat-hole mine at Ksan in the East Jaintia Hills; despite a long rescue effort by the Navy, NDRF and others, only a few bodies were recovered.
• It causes severe environmental damage, including acid mine drainage, which has made several rivers, such as the Kopili and Lukha, acidic and harmful to aquatic life.
• It involves child labour and unregulated working conditions.

Legal action:

• In 2014, the National Green Tribunal (NGT) banned rat-hole mining and the unscientific transport of coal in Meghalaya.
• The Supreme Court upheld the ban but later allowed scientific mining under proper licences.
• Despite the ban, reports of illegal mining have continued.

Why not the other options?

• ✗Assam has coal mining at Margherita and Ledo, mostly by Coal India.
• ✗Arunachal Pradesh has small coal deposits near Namchik-Namphuk.
• ✗Mizoram has no significant coal mining.