AAP exposes denial of electricity to villagers

SHILLONG: The Aam Aadmi Party has expressed concern over the denial of electricity by MeECL to the people of rural areas of the State.
The AAP visited Kut village in Mawryngkneng, East Khasi Hills following complaints by the villagers of being deprived of their rights to have access to electricity because of the alleged corrupt practices of the MeECL officials. Kut is about 7 km from Mawryngkneng which is near Puriang village. The village has around 300 households and more than 60 families were deprived of electricity even after receiving connection, said Peter A Dohkrut, the secretary of legal cell, AAP on Thursday.
Though the authorities had blamed the villagers for defaulting in payment of bills, negligence of the department has also come to the fore.
To substantiate the claim that the bills were never served on time, AAP cited the case of a woman identified as Bakorlang Lawai, who got her connection in 2006, but received the first bill of over Rs 40,000 only in 2016. “Now the bill amount will be over Rs 52,000 and for the last one year, there is no power supply,” the AAP said. According to the AAP leader, the meter reader never makes an on the spot reading and instead everything is managed from the MeECL office resulting in overcharge.
“The clearest evidence of violation is that power supply to more than 60 houses were disconnected for more than a year, but the bills started coming almost every month with extreme charges like Rs  20,000 to Rs 55,000,” he said.
Even the house of the accredited social health activist in the village is no exception. Another concern is that transformers are not protected.
“Sordar of the village, Chestarwel Sohtun, informed that the locals had approached the MLA to air their grievances, but in vain,” Dohkrut said.
The Sordar expressed his willingness to work with AAP to fight against such corrupt practices, Dohkrut claimed.