MeECL employees have a pay revision every five years while Govt employees get a pay hike once in 10 years
Shillong: While technicians in the MeECL are defensive about the Leshka project despite its apparent failure to meet expectations, senior government officials are blunt in saying that the Leshka project which is a run of the river project costing a whopping Rs 1285 crore is what has broken the back of MeECL.
Conceived at a cost of Rs 363 crore, the escalation due to delay, incompetence and corruption has turned the Leshka project into the most expensive hydel project ever. Explaining about the Leshka project a senior government official said, “A run of the mill river has no storage capacity. Such projects only generate power during the monsoons because the rivers are rain-fed. What do you do in the rest of the 3-4 months when the rivers are dry? The most efficient system for any state is to have both hydel and thermal projects. Unfortunately, Meghalaya has never gone in for thermal projects although it has enough coal to fire the power projects, because the scope for kickbacks is lesser on thermal power generation.”
The official also stated that the excuse that Meghalaya coal has high sulphur content and is not viable for power generation does not hold water since there are methods today of de-sulphurising coal.
The official further stated, “To complete the Leshka project huge loans had to be taken and to repay the loans MeECL virtually had to sell off the family jewels. The project is now complete but its generation capacity is suspect. It’s a classic case of a successful operation but the patient died.”
Another malaise plaguing the MeECL is that according to an agreement signed several years ago, MeECL employees have a pay revision every five years while government employees get a pay hike once in 10 years. The pay revision is due soon and no one knows where the money is coming from, the official informed. Government sources said the tragedy is that MeECL employees do not realise the gravity of the situation.
Sources in the government say that MeECL got into the reforms programme without understanding their problems, much of which is of their own making. MeECL could have been a profitable Corporation had it been run on a good business model. Unfortunately, when PJ Bazely was Chairman of the Board he allowed evacuation of several megawatts of power to the industrial areas of Byrnihat. Interestingly after Bazely has retired and was appointed the Chairperson Meghalaya State Electricity Regulatory Commission he passed an order giving the Industries Association considerable relief.
The sources also say that consumers should realise there is no free lunch and they must pay for the higher costs of electricity as we move from hydel to thermal power. In generating hydel power the capital costs are lower but running costs are high whereas in thermal projects the capital costs are higher while running costs are lower. But in the case of Leshka everything has been put on its head. The capital costs are extremely high and so are the running costs as of today.
According to sources one major problem afflicting the MeECL is that its engineers have not executed projects in a long time. And since the Corporation is backed by the Government its engineers do not bother about time and costs overruns. In a private company someone or the other would be held liable for a failed venture or a project whose costs has sky-rocketed the way Leshka has. In this case the project manager has not been held accountable and continues to get away with flimsy excuses.
A government official stated that with more prosperity, more power is needed to fuel that growth and power purchase is inevitable. If the state goes in for power generation then people have to be prepared for land acquisition, all of which are thorny issues in Meghalaya.
Talking about the present power crisis, the official said, “If NEEPCo had been paid regularly we would have had just 4 hours of power cut instead of the 9 or 11 hours load shedding we face today.
But trying to complete Leshka has taken up a major chunk of MeECL’s resources,” he said adding that power is needed and so too a coherent strategy and money to buy power during lean seasons.