SHILLONG, March 14: Congress legislator, George B Lyngdoh, has questioned the policy of Meghalaya Energy Corporation Limited (MeECL) on billing, while stating that it preys on poor consumers while giving special treatment to the corporates which have pending bills worth lakhs of rupees.
“The people are complaining about the billing of the MeECL. There is a complaint that the electricity bills were not served for over a year in 2019. They were suddenly served the bills in the midst of the pandemic in May 2020,” Lyngdoh told reporters.
While informing that they had raised this matter with the previous CMD of the Corporation, he said that the MeECL was also requested to allow consumers pay their bills in instalments. “The previous CMD had agreed in principle to allow the consumers to pay the electricity bills in instalments. The previous agreement was overridden after the new CMD took over. The present CMD then introduced the one-time settlement (OTS) scheme. But no one was aware about this scheme since there was no awareness at all,” Lyngdoh stated.
The Congress MLA alleged that the MeECL is now on a rampage to disconnect power from houses, while adding, “Why is this happening when the families are not able to earn much during the past one year due to the COVID-19 pandemic?”
“On top of this, poor consumers were served pending bills of more than a year. We see industries, after payment of just 10 per cent of the dues, getting their power connection back,” the MLA informed.
Stating that this is a very sad state of affairs, Lyngdoh said that poor consumers are suffering, especially as their children are up for giving their examinations.
He further stated that MeECL has been disconnecting power to houses just to recover bills worth Rs 10,000-14,000.
“On the other hand, there are huge liabilities of around Rs 70 crore from petrol pumps. All these things should be corrected so that our citizens are not harassed,” Lyngdoh added.