Staff Reporter
SHILLONG:
The Association of Power Engineers, Meghalaya Energy Corporation Limited (MeECL), has demanded a thorough investigation into the inability of the corporation to maximise power generation and has also resolved to make its management accountable for the “ills” plaguing it.
“We can no longer be a silent spectator and party to this state of affairs. We demand that a thorough inquiry be instituted to ascertain why for years our power stations have been unable to maximise power generation,” president of the association, Arju Dkhar said after chairing a general body meeting of the association, on July 15.
He further questioned the non-functioning of machines of the new power stations despite crores of rupees being spent on these. “Are our own people involved? We want a thorough inquiry,” he reiterated.
Blaming himself for not making the management accountable for the failure of MeECL to generate electricity resulting in load-shedding even though the state received enough rainfall, Dkhar said that the state has a hydropower generation capacity of 350 MW but during the rainy season it could not optimise it.
“Recently, we have seen our power stations functioning at 30 to 50 per cent. We do expect that during the monsoon period, we maximise our generation,” he said.
The association also urged the management not to take “unnecessary” loans in the name of strengthening distribution, generation and transmission.
“Yes, we do need improvement, but unnecessary loans are not the answer. You do a field visit and see for yourself whether such infrastructure is really required or not. It is high time that as responsible citizens of the state, we start to clean up the mess ourselves,” he added.
Asserting the need to have a full-fledged Information Technology (IT) wing, which can function independently, Dkhar said, “One of our demands is to immediately have an independent IT wing of the MeECL and have our own billing system by April 1, 2025. With it we will be able to accommodate young engineers, who are still pursuing their studies, in the corporation.”
He also demanded empowerment of the IT engineers currently employed with the corporation. “We have competent IT engineers; we have our inbuilt billing system which is called ELVIS and other billing systems. But instead of empowering and supporting them financially to be able to have our own billing system for almost six lakh consumers, you want to outsource it and spend crores of rupees,” he questioned.
Meanwhile, the association also threatened to file an FIR against shortage of manpower in the MeECL.
Dkhar said employees of the MeECL are working under constraints with limited manpower. “They have violated the UN chapter on the working hours of an employee – this is very serious as this is one of the reasons why accidents happened and it is very unfortunate. We feel it is high time we make the management accountable. This association will not shy away to file an FIR if there is any shortage of manpower in the future,” he alleged.