Artificial scarcity hinted upon
SHILLONG: The UDP has taken a serious note of the load shedding effected in Shillong and across the State which has caused tremendous inconvenience to the public at large.
“Load Shedding has started for a month ago now in State without any notification. We would like to know whether the MeECL had sought the permission of the Regulatory Board to enforce load shedding,” UDP working president Paul Lyngdoh said in a memorandum submitted to Power Minister Clement Marak here on Friday.
He said that if the power situation is so bad then why not stretch the load shedding throughout the year.
“We would also like to know if this was done in the current situation to create artificial scarcity, thereby prompting, the department to purchase power from private players at inflated costs to facilitate under the table deals,” Lyngdoh said.
The UDP working president questioned as to why the consumers are being penalized despite having to queue up for making payments in a prompt and regular manner.
He also questioned as to why the consumers of Shillong city, who pay 98 percent due to them are actually made to pay for the lack of competence and professionalism of the Board.
“We would also like to know why the MeECL is continuing with the CMD and Director of Finance who are non-professionals, despite the current situation,” Lyngdoh said while also questioning that if the commissioning of the Leshka Hydel Project has mitigated the power crisis.
The UDP working president suggested that the only solution to end the power cuts and load shedding by changing the timing from 2 am to 4 am especially at this period when students are preparing for their various examinations.
Request to change timings
SHILLONG: Meghalaya Editors and Publishers Association (MEPA) in its emergency executive meeting decided to approach MeECL and request them to reschedule its load shedding timing from 4 am to 6 am because the present load shedding timing affected the newspaper industry as those are the printing hours for the daily news papers.