It was October 17, 1923, a Wednesday, when with sheer amazement, the city of Shillong sparkled with electric lights, conquering the dark after sundown. Cheers and hoorah echoed all over the city! Shillong, with all its grandeur, was flooded by electric lights! It was an unthinkable surprise to the old Shillongites; a night of something unbelievable; a tremendous thrill of achievement. [The date of Installation is confirmed by Prof. Shyamadas Bhattacharjee and Shri Afzal Hussain of Shillong]. 
The installation of electricity in Shillong was performed ceremonially on the evening of October 17, 1923, recorded as a historic day that also coincided with the Durga Puja festivities of Mahashtami. It was first switched on by Sucharu Devi, Queen ofMayurbhanj, a reputed Brahmo Lady of then Shillong. Let us find out who was the main architect of this spectacular act.
Burrowing into its backdrop, it was in between 1920-21, when Dr. Bidhan Chandra Roy, former Chief Minister of West Bengal, would often visit his parents; Prakash Chandra Roy and Aghor Kamini Roy, who were dedicated members of the Shillong Brahmo Samaj and were living in Shillong. They had a house at Kench’s Trace (presently Circuit House of Meghalaya) which in course of time was proverbially known as Bidhan Chandra’s bungalow. As a student, Bidhan Chandra would spend his summers in Shillong and would be tormented by the ghostly darkness of the night. The Municipality Board of Shillong in those days was not regular in lighting the acetylene gas lamps in every nook and corner of the town resulting in eerie dark patches in the city. Bidhan Chandra would observe that in case of an emergency, people would travel with a kerosene lamp or a lantern since a torch light was not affordable, it was a luxury for most. In the local markets selling fish and vegetables, the sellers would burn a kerosine Mashal Lamp to conduct their business in those hours. This was the plight of Shillong before the D day.
Many celebrated tourists like Sir Ashutosh Mukharjee, Swami Vivekananda, Rabindranath Tagore who visited Shillong during that dark period of gas lamps and kerosene lamps, adjusted ungrudgingly with the situation; but Bidhan Chandra Roy, a young student of medicine had been ruminating over ways to establish electricity connectivity in the beautiful hill city. The very thought that electricity as a commodity of everyday usage was existent and supplied only at the European Wards, but not for that of the general public’s consumption was disconcerting to him. This discrimination, like most revolutionary minds of the time, made Bidhan Chandra all the more resolute to succeed at his project – making Electricity available for all in Shillong.
He visited Bidon and Bishop Falls several times and thought deeply of generating hydropower from the great flow of the waterfalls. It is believed that there was a sawmill, adjacent to the falls, run by a man named ‘Sonaram’ who improvised methods to utilise the power of the stream to run his mill; and after his name the falls was proverbially known as ‘Sonapani Falls’.
That proverbial story inspired Bidhan Roy to serve his greater purpose. He took help from his elder brother Sadhan Chandra Roy, who was an Electrical Engineer at the time. They selected Bishop Beadon Falls as the location for the project and after an arduous struggle it turned out a success. This made Bidhan Chandra Roy the main architect of inducting electricity in Shillong! 
‘Sonapani Hydel Project’ was set up as ‘Shillong Hydro Electric’ by Bidhan Chandra Roy, which was known as the Meghalaya State Electricity Board (MSEB) and presently known as MeECL.
The first office of the State Electricity Board since the British period was located opposite to the Meghalaya main Secretariat building, which was named as ‘Bidhan Chandra’ house to commemorate Dr. B.C. Roy.
We, as Shillongites today, can not imagine a single day without electricity! The youth of our generation may have not heard of this electrifying yet glorious story of the birth of electricity in the city, hundred years back, and neither the name of the pioneer of the great project. In fact, it would be quite the day, when citizens of the state will witness a commemoration of this great deed by the state’s electricity board.