Meghalaya’s coal country turns to tourism: the Jaintia transition
A decade after the coal clampdown, the Jaintia Hills is selling waterfalls instead of minerals.
A decade after a Supreme Court order ended most rat-hole coal mining in the Jaintia Hills, the district is rewriting its economy: waterfalls, sacred groves and village homestays now employ more people than the pits did.
The transition is uneven — some villages still wait for roads and water — but the direction is set.
‘We mined the earth and it turned against us,’ one homestay owner said. ‘Now we show the earth, and it pays us back.’