By Our Reporter
SHILLONG, Feb 17: Former home minister, RG Lyngdoh has slammed the style of functioning of the Meghalaya Energy Corporation Limited (MeECL), saying that “the biggest problem with MeECL is that it still functions like a government department despite being corporatised.”
“They are yet to get a professional chairman cum managing director (CMD) to work with them on a full-time basis. The CMD is still a bureaucrat who is posted there for two to three years before he/she is changed. This results in no continuity in the policy, and in many cases, before the policy can be implemented, the incumbent is changed,” Lyngdoh said.
He pointed out that there was an urgent need to appoint a permanent professional, with an MBA and/or an engineering degree, at the helm of MeECL.
Stating that the CMD is appointed by, and is answerable to the state government, he said that decisions were therefore slow and generally made on political considerations.
“The CMD should be appointed by, and made answerable to, the MeECL’s Board of Directors. The Board of Directors should be represented by financial and technical experts, the employees’ inion, consumers’ forum and the state government. Decisions should then be made on financial and technical considerations first, while political considerations should be considered later,” he said.
Stressing on the need to prioritise the generation wing, Lyngdoh said the consideration for allotment of contracts for building power generation plants should be purely on technical and financial terms, which should be kept transparent and professional, and every decision should be under close scrutiny of the Board of Directors, which will then be answerable to the Meghalaya Legislative Assembly.
He further maintained that the distribution wing should be decentralised with a business centre in every district and each business centre be made answerable to the Board of Directors of the subsidiary looking after distribution.
“This Board of Directors is then answerable to the holding company. Priority should be given to plug all leakages, with special monitoring of the big corporate consumers in the state,” Lyngdoh said.
Asking the government to tighten up the billing and revenue collection, especially in rural areas, he lamented that presently, rural consumers are billed in a very random manner, with many consumers getting a bill after three or four months. “As a result, the bill amounts become too large to pay and the consumers turn defaulters for no fault of theirs,” he said.
“Bills should be presented to rural consumers on a monthly basis while bill collections should also be decentralised to the level of a cluster of villages. The committee/society at the cluster level should then be given the task of collecting the bills from the consumers on a monthly basis and depositing them at the block or district collection centres. These committees/societies can be given a percentage of the bills to motivate and sustain them,” Lyngdoh said.
The former home minister also said that the employees’ union should be given recognition by the Board of Directors on their agreement to look after the welfare of the employees as well as the welfare of the corporation.
“For a state that has so much potential for generating hydroelectric power, it is shameful that we should be reeling under power cuts like we are facing today. Our neighbours in Assam have shown how good governance and good management can benefit the common man,” he said.