The Kylleng Pyndengsohiong Mawthabah (KPM) Uranium project located in West Khasi district of Meghalaya was discovered and ore reserves were established in 1992 by Atomic Minerals Directorate for Exploration and Research (AMD), under the Department of Atomic Energy. A feasibility report was prepared by Uranium Corporation of India Ltd (UCIL), a Public Sector Undertaking (PSU) under Department of Atomic Energy in March 2001 to establish mining, processing and other related facilities. Based on the results, UCIL engaged Engineers India Limited (EIL) in October 2002 to prepare a detailed project report. Accordingly, UCIL planned to set up an open-pit mine at Kylleng-Pyndengsohiong and a processing plant at the site.

The public hearing was successfully conducted in June 2007 and the Ministry of Environment Forest and Climate Change (MoEFCC) granted environmental clearance in December 2007. But local tribal groups, spearheaded by the Khasi Students' Union (KSU), the Langrin Youth Welfare Association (LYWA), Women Against Uranium Mining (WAUM), and backed by the Khasi Hills Autonomous District Council (KHADC), opposed the project, citing serious threats to public health, the environment, and traditional land rights that have sustained Khasi communities for generations.

In August 2016, the Meghalaya government pulled the plug on earlier permissions granted to UCIL, citing poor community consultations and shaky environmental reviews. The KHADC has since refused to issue no-objection certificates (NOCs), keeping the project in limbo.

At the end of 2016, the AMD called for tenders for 15,000 metres of exploration core drilling on the Nongiri Plateau in the South West Khasi Hills district. On 8 February 2017, in a written response to a question in the Lok Sabha, Jitendra Singh, Minister of State in the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO), who was also handling the Atomic Energy portfolio, said that the government has already planned to develop the mineral resources at Domiasiat, a village in West Khasi Hills, about 130 kilometres from the state capital, under the name of ‘Kylleng-Pdengsohiong-Mawthabah (KPM) Uranium Mining Project’. Days later, the KHADC once again unanimously approved the decision to not grant NOCs to uranium mining in Meghalaya.

However, in 2018 three AMD officials were assaulted whilst collecting uranium samples from small boreholes, prompting UCIL to close its project office in Meghalaya in August 2018 and terminate service agreements.

People in the area have long reported strange health problems, things like unexplained illnesses, higher rates of cancer, and birth defects that many link back to exploratory drilling by the AMD years ago. A turning point came in 2020 when environmental activist Bremley W B Lyngdoh visited remote villages and documented alarmingly high radiation levels from cracked effluent tanks used to store uranium waste. His findings sparked widespread fear about contaminated water and soil seeping into daily life. Locals pointed to incidents like dead fish floating in the Ranikor River as proof that the damage was already underway, threatening not just farming but the whole ecosystem that supports biodiversity in this hilly, rain-soaked corner of Northeast India.

On the legal front, the standoff hinges on key laws like the Atomic Energy Act of 1962, which gives the central government oversight of uranium resources, and the Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act of 2006, meant to safeguard community claims over ancestral lands. The Sixth Schedule of the Indian Constitution adds another layer, empowering bodies like the KHADC to control land use in tribal areas.

In March 2025, Chief Minister Conrad K Sangma shot down rumours that the cash-strapped state might green-light mining to offset debts, calling such talk "immature" and reaffirming Meghalaya's firm no to uranium extraction. This came amid fresh speculation, including a 2024 push by the North East Sunshine Trust (NEST) to revive the project.

A June 2025 report from the World Nuclear Association highlighted how political pushback continues to stall new mines in Meghalaya, alongside spots like Jharkhand.

Meanwhile, UCIL's grand plans for open-pit operations and a processing plant at Mawthabah remain on paper. The project's price tag was pegged at about Rs 1,000 crore back in 2009, covering roughly 422 hectares and potentially impacting thousands in around 25 villages. Though the exact number of affected households vary, some estimates suggest the project could directly affect 5,000 people, while indirectly affect at least 30,000.

Figures like the late Spility Lyngdoh Langrin, a landowner who famously turned down UCIL's buyout offers in the 2000s, embody that defiance. "We won't sell our future for money," she once said, echoing sentiments still alive today. An October 2024 appeal from a youth forum even urged neighbouring Manipur to draw lessons from her resistance.

Despite global uranium demand spiking, as noted in an April OECD-NEA report, as on 27 August 2025, the stalemate continues.