A senior NECL executive said, "We cannot do much to stop this as the people involved enjoy support of various terrorist organisations and local people."Large tracts of lands in Meghalaya having coal deposits have not been identified as mines due to the uneconomical nature of the deposits. These are exploited by the local people who use primitive methods to dig out coal.

The land is owned by various tribes residing in the region. They often lease out the land to private operators who pay a royalty in return. The operators either employ the local people for their mining operations or else have a contract to buy up all the coal that they can gather during the day.

Coal industry sources say, "Although the mining operations are not illegal, the private operators do not report at least half their transactions and make clandestinesales both within the country and to parties in neighbouring Bangladesh."

According to Meghalaya government reports, the private operators had produced and dispatched 28 lakh tonnes of coal during 1997. The actual figure is much higher, officials say.

Coal India sources, well versed in the nature of the coal trade in the region say, "The operations of the private dealers are on a huge scale and at any point of time they might be holding something like 50-60,000 tonnes of coal. They are providing stiff competition to NECL as by avoiding sales tax these people manage to provide coal at much cheaper rates." The operators also have a good market in the northern part of the country and wagons are regularly loaded for customers in Punjab, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh. The private operators use four railway stations in Assam - New Guwahati, Jogighofa, Baihata and Rangia - to load coal for north Indian dispatches.

A few months back the Indian Railways had launched a drive against overloading of wagons by theseoperators and had intercepted quite a few wagons in Uttar Pradesh.

It was estimated that the quantum of freight avoidance by these operators, achieved through overloading of wagons, amounts to Rs 100 crore every year.