MeECL may not be with Govt: Congress

“I am afraid MeECL may not be with the Meghalaya government because their intent is very bad and they are paving the way to be taken over by some private company ultimately,” Congress spokesperson Zenith Sangma said in a statement.

“Their modus operandi is, as such that they are creating such a situation where MeECL will be in a dept trap – then with an excuse that MeECL cannot sustain on its own and therefore it may run by any private company allegedly having the partnership with the kith and kin of the people in power,” he said.

He said if one is analytical and looks back chronologically from the genesis – “They (CM and Power Minister) don’t bother to improve the generation resulting in the huge loss of more than 600 crores of revenue to the public exchequer. Their focus is to take loan and to call tender and awarding it at an exorbitant rate arbitrarily.”

“Then on the other hand, they started taking loan after loan – starting from taking loan for power purchase, took loan to make payments to their favoured contractors be it for DDUGJY, be it for SAUBHAGYA and many other Schemes,” he added.

Apart from all these, Sangma said the MeECL is taking loan of 1345.72 crores with 9.50% (percent) rate of interest (which is very attractive according to James Sangma, the Power Minister) whereby Rs 10.65 crores has to be paid per month only as interest component adding now the total debt of the corporation is almost touching 2000 crores.

He said mortgaging the land and other assets of the MeECL with an intent of leasing out to other outside companies as they are doing with M/s JPS Industries Limited in the pretext of manufacturing Smart meters, etc.

“Now after all these, the MeECL’s monthly expenditure including repayment of loan is around Rs 110 crores against its monthly income of 80-85 crores. So, MeECL is running at a loss of 25-30 crores per month,” he said.

Sangma said, “Chief Minister along with Power Minister should make a u-turn from all these wrong doings in the greater interest of the people and save the State, otherwise, the people will not forgive them. We want good governance. Please don’t run the State as a Corporate House.”

Stating that the opposition has been raising the issue of mismanagement in MeECL for the last one year, Sangma who is also Rangsakona legislator said there is no representation in the Board Directors from the Power and Finance Department for very long time.

He said it is very important for the government to be vigilant on the crucial decisions made by the MeECL adding “But intentionally it was not done because there is a malafide intention in this, so that there will be no disruption and the CMD will be free to dictate on any issue to get it smooth sailing.”

Sangma said there is mismanagement even in the recruitment at the entry level. Disproportionately creating new posts for Addl Chief Engineers and Chief Engineers whereas the management is advocating minimizing the burden by outsourcing to other companies.

He said whereas, the corporation is generating only 60 MW out of 356 MW of installed capacity because of the mismanagement thereby losing the revenue of more than Rs 50 crores per month.

“This is precisely because of the reason that their (CM and Minister Power) focus is something else,” he added.

The Congress leader also alleged that the recent cabinet decision to scrap the outsourcing of 56 substations to the outside company was just an eye wash.

“Promise to institute an Independent Inquiry without materializing it, is another eyewash. What they are doing is, just for the gallery,” he said.

By Our Reporter