SHILLONG, June 6: Grappling with a prolonged dry spell, Meghalaya is spending an additional amount of Rs 3 crore every day to buy power.
Disclosing this on Tuesday, Chief Minister Conrad K Sangma said if the prevailing situation continues for the next 100 days, the state will be spending an additional Rs 300 crore just to buy power to maintain the ongoing level of load-shedding.
“In the last two years and this year, we are spending, on an average, around Rs 600 crore of state’s revenue to pay for different expenditures, including the purchase of power,” Sangma said.
He said the Umiam Lake is almost on the verge of shutdown as the state has not received the required amount of rainfall in the past few months. He said these have been difficult months for the state. He cited that the power scenario in other states is also bad because of deficit rainfall.
“We are doing our best to ensure that load-shedding does not go beyond this. We need the rains to come,” Sangma said, adding solar mission and thermal plants could be the remedial measures.
He said there are multiple issues which need to be addressed to improve the financial health of Meghalaya Energy Corporation Limited (MeECL).
“We do not have full power to determine the rates charged by the MeECL as the same is determined by the regulatory commission…The consumers are paying 6 Rs (per unit) while the industries are paying Rs 5. These are rates set up by the commission. In spite of repeated requests that the industries should pay more, we have not got a positive result or response from them,” Sangma said.
“We are trying to resolve all these issues. The rates charged from consumers are much lower than what the MeECL is bearing. These things have to be changed if we want to see a long-term improvement in the financial health of the MeECL,” he added.
The CM further said, “We also have issues of AT&C (aggregate technical & commercial) losses but the same came down to some extent in the last few years. Schemes like RDSS are being implemented to ensure that there is better metering and reduction in the AT&C losses.”
Sangma said the state will have to increase its own power production in terms of augmenting the hydropower plants and ensuring that it has other sources for generating power.
Reacting to a statement of former chief minister and TMC leader Mukul Sangma that some power projects cancelled by the MDA 1.0 government in 2018 could have taken care of the huge gap between demand and supply, the CM said certain power projects were cancelled as there were procedural lapses.
“The procedures need to be followed while we allot work but it was not done,” he added.
On the blame game, he said, “If I have to find ways and points to blame, there are thousands and millions of them. But I don’t think that is going to help the situation right now.”
