SHILLONG, April 6: The MeECL on Tuesday issued a notice imposing an eight-hour load-shedding in the state, except for the Garo Hills region, on Wednesday.
“Meghalaya is facing an acute power shortage of around 2.1 MU (million units) due to maintenance shutdown of one unit of OTPC Agartala, low generation of all NEEPCO hydro plants and low water level in MePGCL power stations,” MeECL CMD, Arunkumar Kembhavi said in the order uploaded on its website.
Kembhavi stated that with great difficulty, on Tuesday evening, they managed to arrange around 0.8 MU of power from outside the state.
“Because of the ongoing Assembly elections across India and peak summer in Northern and Southern India, energy rates in exchange markets have touched Rs 6 per unit thus making it unviable for us to purchase electricity on a real time basis,” he said.
The MeECL CMD stated that they have no other option but to enforce load shedding across Meghalaya on rotation basis.
“The timing may vary slightly to ensure grid stability. All attempts will be made to cause least inconvenience to the general public,” Kembhavi stated.
He also maintained that this has got nothing to do with the regulation notice issued from Power Grid but only because of water availability.
