Govt mulls two-pronged strategy
SHILLONG: The Meg-halaya Government has decided to adopt a two-pronged strategy to tackle the shortage of power facing the State, as indicated by Chief Minister Mukul Sangma on Tuesday. One is the short-term one to convince NEEPCO to supply power. The other is a long-term one to make MeECL a financially viable concern and also to set up thermal power plants in the State.
He told newsmen the State Government had directed the Power Department to come up with an action plan to help MeECL to overcome the present crisis. He informed that the power department would put up a proposal and take it up with NEEPCO.
“The Power Department will have to come up with an action plan to ensure that the MeECL does not continue to be a losing concern. At the moment our focus is to allow the corporation to overcome this crisis of not being able to buy power as they need,” Sangma said.
“Yesterday, they have submitted a proposal. We had reviewed whether the proposal submitted to the Government will suffice or not. This is how we are moving forward,” Chief Minister said.
Asserting that NEEPCO would have to provide Meghalaya with the share of power which was due to the State, the Chief Minister emphasized that the Government was “not begging” from NEEPCO. “NEEPCO is duty bound to actually comply when a State faces a crisis because it has been set up for the purpose of catering to the needs and requirement of the Northeastern states,” he added.
The share of power of Meghalaya from NEEPCO had been brought down since the State Government had not been able to clear the pending dues on time, the Chief Minister said. “We have requested NEEPCO to allow us to share the quantum of power which is entitled to the State. Thereby, allow us to tide over the present crisis,” the Chief Minister said.
Pointing out that this year the crisis was more, he said that the generation capacity of all the generations stations had gone down because of the hydrological factors again influenced by the global warming.
“We need to have some long term measures to address the concerned of drying of up of the majority of the rivers and dwindling hydrological data. At the same time, we also need of other sources of generation of power within the State,” Sangma said.
He informed that he had directed the Power Department to constitute an entity which would be tasked to generate coal based thermal power. “So a new entity in the name of State Power Trading Corporation will be examined so that they would become a Government entity to develop thermal plant in the State.”
“We need to have mix of both hydel and thermal projects which is an ideal approach. We need to have alternative sources of power to meet the unforeseen challenges. We need to strike a balance since the State all these years is dependent on hydro projects.”
“We are providing funds for initiating a thermal plant in the State. We should have a thermal plant at the earliest, a smaller thermal plant to start with. We would subsequently examine if we can think of a bigger thermal plant at a later stage.” Sangma expressed unhappiness at the inability of MeECL to perform as expected. “The present crisis in the MeECL is because certain measures which are required to be adopted to ensure corporate body sustains itself were not effectively implemented due to various factors.”
According to the Chief Minister, the failure to implement these measurers had cost the MeECL huge losses, including transmission and distribution and other losses.
“The Government on number of occasions has told them that there are available technologies which can be adopted to bring down the losses. But sadly, this was also not complied by the MeECL,” Sangma said.
He said that all these hiccups had occurred since the MeECL had not able to implement those programmes as directed. “We are now asking them why they were not following the directive given by the Government,” the Chief Minister asked.
He said that the issue of load shedding was related to this problem in the MeECL. “It is a matter of concern for every concerned citizen in the State as everyday life is affected whenever there is load-shedding. People cannot start his or her day if there is no water. The supply depends on the availability of power. Every aspect of our livelihood activity depends on power,” he said.
Chief Minister took strong exception that sometimes the onus of failures on the part of MeECL was passed on to the State Government. “There is a mechanism of running the Government. The nitty-gritty of governance is that under the Government there are various agencies. MeECL is a company it has to act as corporate body,” he said.
Sangma said that the Government had decided to review that all the projects which the Government had identified. “I will do the review at my personal level,” the Chief Minister said. The Chief Minister informed that he had reviewed with NEEPCO CMD and other officials the 85 MW Mawphu project and 500 MW thermal projects in Garo Hills which had been allotted to the corporation onApril 20.
Referring to 280 MW Kynshi Stage I which wass joint venture project between the State Government and Athena Groups, he said that they had completed the preparation of the DPR. “The firm is in the process for the getting clearance before the project is capable of having financial closure. Having the financial closure after getting all the statutory clearance is achieved, the implementation process would immediately start,” he said.
The State Government was taking up with the concerned ministry the issue of the Kynshi Stage II project so that the State Government could proceed with it.