SHILLONG:
Power Minister AT Mondal, on April 26, said that load-shedding will continue till there is some relief in the grid even as he maintained that the department is taking all steps to ensure load shedding hours are reduced.
Speaking to media persons on power purchase at such times, the power minister said that the rate being so high, government is unable to purchase power, and unavailability is also a matter of concern.
“There is no financial crunch and it is a completely different thing, but we can buy upto a certain limit and cannot go beyond that as it will put us in a difficult situation,” he said.
Further, Mondal said shutdowns of power projects like Kopili stage-I of 200 MW from where the state gets 35MW as share, Khandong power station of 50 MW (state share is 8.51MW) and Kopili stage-II of 25 MW (state share is 3.45 MW) has really affected the state of Meghalaya.
He also informed that the Leshka power project has also been shut down completely because of no water.
The minister further informed that he had reviewed the water level of the Umiam and warned “We may have to shut down (this power project if the water level keeps on falling).”