SHILLONG: The fact-finding team constituted by the Opposition parties in the State has expressed satisfaction over the implementation of the New Umtrew Hydro Electricity Project in Ri Bhoi District.
Members of the fact-finding team led by its Chairman Jemino Mawthoh made this observation following inspection of the project site on Friday.
“We are impressed with the way the project is being implemented. We could see the efforts of the MeECL engineers to complete the project at the earliest,” Mawthoh said while taking to newsmen after the inspection.
According to Mawthoh, the MeECL has set a target to commission the project by December, 2015.
“We are optimistic that the power scenario in the State will drastically improve once the project is commissioned since this project is expected to generate more power than the old Umtrew project,” he said.
Meanwhile, Additional Chief Engineer of the New Umtrew project, E. Shabong, informed that the project had been set in motion in 2005.
“The initial cost of the project was Rs. 226.4 crore but due to problem such as land acquisition and other factors the cost had escalated to Rs. 461.24 crore as of last year,” Shabong said.
“The old Umtrew project generated a mere 11.2 MW of power but the new project will generate 40 MW of power which will surely benefit the people of the State,” Shabong said, adding that they would conduct further studies on the power scenario in the State before coming up with their final report.
Mawthoh, meanwhile, informed that after collecting necessary information and data, the opposition parties would meet before starting the exercise of compiling the reports.
Earlier, the fact-finding team had also conducted an inspection of the site of the Myntdu-Leshka Hydro Electric Project in Jaintia Hills.
After that visit, Mawthoh had said that it was too early to make any comment or reach a conclusion on the functioning of the project. “We will have to conduct an extensive study of all details of the project,” he had said.
