Young girls, also coal traders, shy away from the camera. Local trade in coal proliferates along Jowai road. It is a nocturnal affair. Traders, most of whom are women, sit in wooden shacks behind the coal heaps to buy coal. Trucks from local mines travelling to Shillong offload a little coal at these roadside shacks, while drivers pocket the extra money.

The coal bought is later sold to households in the nearby villages. Electricity and cooking gas top the list of energy requirements in the Northeast. And demand more than exceeds supply. Domestic needs are increasingly met by the ubiquitous coal

(Photographs by Monali Zeya Hazra)

Heaps of black coal are in contrast to the green of the hills in the background at the collection point in Wapung. Built on community land, the collection point stockpiles coal from the mines in the region, which are inaccessible to trucks.

Mining in Jaintia hills is a private enterprise, which is slowly growing into a small-scale industry. No regulations and an aloof government emboldened people to extract more coal

(Photographs by Monali Zeya Hazra)

A Khasi woman supervising work shouts instructions to Bangladeshi workers. She is a member of the family that owns the mine.The coal business in Jaintia Hills is rife with class divisions built over regional identities

(Photographs by Monali Zeya Hazra)

Pipes being used to pump out groundwater encountered while mining for coal. The pH values of both surface and groundwater tested in the region were in the range of 3 to 3.7, indicating that the run off from the mines is eventually seeping into water bodies.

Though the mining business in this region is people-owned, it is unregulated and thereby run unscientifically

(Photographs by Monali Zeya Hazra)

An array of shops selling ancillary mining equipment along the road and a variety of heavy-duty vehicles moving through Ladrymbai suggested that the transformation of the town was complete.

The Meghalaya Pollution Control Board has reported an increase in air pollution in this coal belt. The average SPM (suspended particulate matter) count is 200 microgramme per cubic metre. The majority of the patients at the primary health centre in the area complain of asthma and other respiratory tract ailments

(Photographs by Monali Zeya Hazra)

A worker manually operates a wooden pulley to pull out coal from a mine pit. Abundant deposits and an increasing demand for coal push miners to phase out wooden pulleys in favour of hauling of coal via cranes

(Photographs by Monali Zeya Hazra)

A mine worker at Sutnga village in Jaintia Hills guides an overloaded coal tray being pulled up by a crane, with a rope to keep it from tipping over

(Photographs by Monali Zeya Hazra)

Workers stand in the coal tray to enjoy an easy ride back into the mine pit. Mining has spurted a need for many secondary services and by itself has a high employment potential. This has led to a high influx of migrants from neighbouring states and countries, and has become a cause for concern for the Meghalaya government

(Photographs by Monali Zeya Hazra)

A worker squats to pull out a fully laden tray of coal from a hole. When the coal within the pit exhausts, horizontal tunnels are dug through which workers burrow to find coal. Many workers narrated incidents of tunnel roofs collapsing and trapping the workers inside

(Photographs by P Madhavan)