SHILLONG, March 7: Chief Minister Conrad K. Sangma on Sunday said that it is for the people of Meghalaya and for the MLAs to decide who should be in the government.
‘It’s very unfortunate that the leader of the opposition, Dr Mukul Sangma has made this statement,” Sangma said, reacting to the Congress leader’s statement that the state’s flagging power sector can be saved only if he and his brother and Power Minister James P.K. Sangma quit. He, however, maintained that the former CM has the right to air his thoughts in a democracy and that he would not like to comment on this further.
“The situation in the MeECL is because of a series of events that have taken place over the years. One should go into the history of the dealings with the National Thermal Power Corporation and how it happens and why we are in this situation today,” the Chief Minister stated.
Pointing out that many governments in the past are responsible for this mess, Sangma insisted on not blaming anyone.
He said: “I will not talk about it right now. I will explain in the Assembly what the details are. There has been a lot of improvement in the power sector since we took over.” “In the last three months, the first tranche of about Rs 350 crore was directly released to pay the dues of most of the generation companies, including NTPC, PGDCIL and NEEPCO,” Sangma said.
According to him, the process of actually clearing the dues started from the present government.
“This government is clearing up that mess which was created during the past many years by taking the initiative to finally find a solution to stabilise and to make MeECL profitable in the long run,” the Chief Minister added.