Load-shedding: CM comes clean, blames elections

SHILLONG, May 6: Coming clean on the arbitrary load-shedding in state a day after the intervention of the High Court of Meghalaya in the matter, Chief Minister Conrad Sangma said that the government could not implement load-shedding during election days, which is why there are long hours of power cuts in the state at present.
“During election time we were not able to spread out the load-shedding and hence we had to implement load-shedding within this period,” the Chief Minister said on Saturday.
He recalled how there would be a few hours of load-shedding between January and April. “…we had to put all of that in the month of April and May and hence we are seeing heavy load-shedding now which is something unprecedented and should not be happening in years to come,” the CM added.
When asked about the High Court’s directive to the government to ensure equitable distribution of power and essential services, the CM said, “They have said to give a report and affidavit and what is the situation and what the government is doing based on that we will give the factual report on the current situation”.
It may be recalled that the High Court had on Friday directed the state government and the MeECL to file affidavits indicating equitable distribution of load-shedding hours and the alternative arrangements being made for maintenance of essential services like hospitals, airports and other key installations.