A Clash between over 100 hand miners from Nalaikh Coal Mining and “Tsagaan Shonkhor” Holding Company workers continues. On November 25th, over 100 hand miners armed with spades, spuds and crowbars, attacked ten workers of the Tsagaan Shonkhor Holding company. Three workers of the company were injured and taken to the hospital.

About 700 hand miners are working in Nalaikh coal mining for a living. However, the hand miners are not legal, but have worked for subsistence money before the company took the extracting license in 2006. The company has calculated that the deposit has 24 million tons of coal. The company says they will extract 700-800 tons of coal per year beginning in 2008 through high technology. The project was backed by government related organizations. They took a legal license, but the hand miners refused to give them their deposit.

The hand miners said that they get at least Tg 20,000 per day to extract coal and sell it. This means their income is Tg 400,000-500,000 per month in the winter season. The company told the hand miners they would give them jobs and promised them sufficient salary.  However, the hand miners do not believe the company because the mining share holder is a Chinese company with 51 percent of the shares and they don’t want to work under a Chinese administered company. The hand miners said that if they lose their mining jobs, their families, totaling over five thousand people who live in the Naliakh district, would go hungry. Hand miners pay Tg 60,000 per drill from 31 drilling holes per day to the company, but the company paid the General Taxation Office only Tg 150,000 per year.  Nalaikh district police have not caught anyone.  

Written by B.Bulgamaa 
The UB Post

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