Lack of comprehensive policy for controlling the environmental damages caused by the coal mining sites is posing a great problem in dealing with the people involved in coal mining business, a study carried out by Nagaland Pollution Control Board (NPCB) has revealed.
According to NPCB report, the majority of coal mines being active in four district of Nagaland are seasonal, practised unscientifically in most cases by the individual landowners or in collaboration with contractors and businessmen outside the state.
It found that the strip mining altered the landscape that reduced the value of the natural environment in the surrounding areas of the mines.
The land surface is dedicated to the mining activities until it can be reshaped and reclaimed.
NPCB said if mining is allowed, the residents of the human population must be resettled off the mine site. Mining also interrupts economic activities such as agriculture or hunting and gathering food and medicinal plants, the survey reports stated.
Usually reclamation of disturbed lands to a land use condition is not equal to the original use. Existing land uses (such as livestock, gazing crop and timber production) are temporarily eliminated from the mining area.
Strip mining eliminates existing vegetation, destroys the genetic soil profile, displaces or destroys wildlife and habitat, alters current land uses, and to some extent permanently changes the general topography of the area mined.
Adverse impact on geological features on human interest may occur in a coal strip mine.
Geomorphic and geophysical and outstanding scenic resources may occur due to the disruptive activities of blasting, ripping, and excavating coal.
Stripping of overburden eliminates and destroys archaeological and historic features, unless they are removed beforehand.
The removal of vegetative cover and activities associated with the construction of haul roads, stockpiling of topsoil, displacement of over burden and hauling of soil and coal increases the quantity of dust and mining operations, NPCB said in its survey report.
It further pointed out that degradation of air quality by dust in the immediate area has an adverse impact on vegetative life and constitutes health and safety hazards for mine workers and nearby residents.
Surface mining disrupts all aesthetic elements of the landscape. Alternation of land forms often imposed unfamiliar and discontinuous configurations. New linear patters appear as material is extracted and waste piles are developed. Different colours and textures are exposed as vegetative over is removed and over burden dumped to the side.
Dust, vibration, and diesel exhaust odours are created (affecting sight, sound and smell). Residents of local communities often find such impacts disturbing or unpleasant. In case of mountain top removal, top soil are removed from mountains or hills to expose thick coal seams underneath. The soil and rock removed is deposited at the nearby valleys, hollows, and depressions resulting on blocked and contaminated waterways.
Removal of soil and rock overburden covering coal resource may cause burial and loss of topsoil, exposes parent material, and creates large infertile wasteland. Soil disturbances and associated compaction result in conditions conducive to erosion. Soil removal from the area to be surface-minded alters/destroys many natural soil characteristics, and reduces its biodiversity and productivity for agriculture.
Soil structure may be disturbed by pulverization or aggregate breakdown. Sodium salts are deposited on nearby lands which would convert the land into alkali soil by reducing the fertility of vegetative land and also cause erosion of nearby structure, the report added.
Tuesday, April 7, 2026