TURA: Jengjal town, which lies in the crucial tri-junction to both Tura and Williamnagar and has to its ‘pride’ the only airport of Garo Hills, has been left virtually ‘powerless’ for almost to a month with no end in sight to its misery.
The town, approximately 30 km from Tura, located on the main national highway (NH-51), witnessed electricity last on July 19. The main transformer, which supplied power across the town and its various business establishments, exploded and went out of service four weeks ago.
Since then, no restoration work has been carried out by either the Meghalaya Power Distribution Corporation Limited (MePDCL) or its sister agency Meghalaya Electricity Corporation Limited (MeECL) leaving the inhabitants of Jengjal to fend for themselves.
The alibi given by the power corporation officials is that there are unpaid dues from across Jengjal amounting to over Rs 14 lakh, which consumers, including government establishments, have failed to pay up for many months.
Even the Jengjal Police Station is running on candles and lanterns during the night for lack of power. The police department has almost Rs 28,000 to pay in electrical dues for its station.
Shockingly, while non-payment of dues has been attributed for the power corporation’s reluctance to install a new transformer, others who have diligently paid their electricity bills are also suffering for no fault of theirs.
The absence of electricity has also hampered business and healthcare drastically.
The Jengjal branch of the State Bank of India is severely handicapped in business transactions due to lack of electricity.
But the biggest impact is being felt on the health sector where crucial treatment is being hampered due to lack of electricity.
Jengjal does not have any government-run primary health centre at the moment.
The only medical establishment currently catering to patients belongs to the Seventh Day Adventist Church through which a team of professional child specialists and gynaecologists from Christian Medical College Vellore are treating patients from far and near.
The 13-bed SDA Nursing Home of the SDA Vellore doctors are running in full capacity dealing with an array of medical cases including child delivery and treatment of various diseases round the clock. In the last one month, there have been twenty child delivery cases in its maternity wing.
“We are forced to purchase 50 litres of fuel every second day to run our generators and the costs are building up. It is very challenging,” said Dr Denyl Joshua, director of the nursing home.
When the officials of the nursing home initially approached the MeECL about the disruption of the electricity, they were simply told to pay for a separate transformer which would provide them with “uninterrupted” power.
The problem was the cost as a single transformer goes into several lakhs of rupees — a huge amount of money which can instead be utilised by the medics to purchase essential medical equipment.
The nursing home, which is filled with patients every day, was soon to operate its very own operating theatre but the power cut has put a brake to it all.
“We have already purchased an anesthetic machine for installation and tele-medicine facilities are going to start in a couple of weeks’ time but the lack of power is hampering our work and we don’t know how long we can continue,” said Dr Joshua.
With no solution in sight and absence of any helping hand from the authorities, there is serious concern that the situation could linger on and the most affected would be the people in need of medical treatment.
