By Our Reporter
SHILLONG, June 6: Leader of Opposition Mukul Sangma on Friday demanded an independent inquiry into the massive cost escalation of the 22.5 MW Ganol Small Hydropower Project which is generating 1 MW of power at a whopping cost of over Rs 26 crore.
He sniffed a scam in the implementation of the project. He said the previous Congress-led government had initiated the project in 2010 and worked till 2014.
“When the project was initiated, it was estimated to cost Rs 356.46 crore and scheduled to be completed by December of 2018,” Sangma said.
However, he added, when the project was scheduled to be completed, the incumbent government came up with a petition for revision of cost and the project cost was revised to Rs 507.7 crore in 2019.
That was not the end. The government further revised the cost to Rs 535.34 crore in 2023 and now, it has jumped to Rs 590.88 crore after the state cabinet recently sanctioned Rs 30 crore to clear the bills of contractors.
According to Sangma, every single paisa spent on the project will be passed on to the consumers. They are now charged Rs 12.80 for per unit of power from this project.
“How is it possible for a power project to have space for repeated revisions of the projected cost?” the Opposition leader said, adding that with a massive project cost of Rs 590 crore, the cost of each megawatt of power from the project is coming to Rs 26.26 crore.
“No one has spent more than Rs 20 crore per megawatt even in the most difficult areas. These are trial balloons to see whether people react or not and since Meghalaya has shown the way, others will follow,” he said.
He alleged that the modus operandi of the government has been scripted so well that every project in every sector is abused and misused as a milch cow.
Demanding an independent investigation into the inflated project cost, he called for social auditing of the project as per the Meghalaya Community Participation and Public Services Social Audit Act.
Coal illegalities
Sangma also reiterated his demand for an inquiry by the central agency to unearth the illegalities related to coal mining and its transportation to different states even as he slammed the police for brilliantly not finding any evidence of illegal coal mining despite filing of several FIRs by citizens.
Sangma said that the quantum of coal as reflected by the state government in its revised inventory in 2018-19 to indicate that there was a substantial quantity of extracted coal was not a fact.
“How can 2-3 lakh MT of coal become 32 lakh MT of extracted coal and the government continues to be in denial mode,” he questioned.
Pointing out that the citizens had filed multiple FIRs against instances of illegal coal mining and transportation, he said that police never filed any charge sheet in all the cases, and additionally claimed that there was no evidence of illegal coal mining.
“When there is rampant illegal mining, how is it possible for police not to establish any evidence at any point of time?,” he said.
Stressing the need for an inquiry by a central agency free from any political influence, he said that this scale of illegality has gone beyond the boundary of Meghalaya and hence the inquiry should not be handled by the Meghalaya government.