SHILLONG:
Opposition AITC leader and former chief minister Mukul Sangma on Thursday said power-deficit Meghalaya is a victim of unhealthy posturing of the political parties, who were in the government in 2008 because they canceled all power projects, which could have taken care of the huge gap between demand and supply in the power sector.
Expressing concern over the present power situation which has led to the imposition of long hours of load-shedding in the state, Mukul said, “Meghalaya is a victim of these same politicians who without using their whatever knowledge and wisdom God has gifted us took certain decisions and they canceled all the decisions that were taken, including the termination of the agreement with NEEPCO which were for hydroelectricity power generation and for thermal power generation.”
“Dismantling is easy but construction is a tough job. That is why today this is a price we are paying because of politicians who have behaved irresponsibly and that time who were there in the government, who was in charge of power,” he added.
In 2008-09, the power minister was Conrad K Sangma, who is now the chief minister of the state.
“Please remember in 2008 and 2009, we were not in the government. But prior to 2008 and 2009, there were substantial decisions taken to address this very concern of taking care of the huge gap in respect of the demand and supply as far as power is concerned,” he said while adding “So we took decision-based on the Electricity Act, 2003 and policies of both Union government and state government. What happened, I think people thought as a politician you can just come and take a decision and knock off such decisions taken by the earlier government, deviating from practice, the overall tradition and convention of the government to realize and understand and comprehend its own responsibility towards continuity of responsibility.”
According to him, in any government when it has taken a decision, the burden of responsibility is to see and re-examine whether the decisions were taken appropriately in the larger good of the state and the people or not.
Further, Mukul said the state which was having a huge supply of coal at that time could have served as a captive fuel supply to the power generating company NEEPCO.
“NEEPCO is for the whole North East. NEEPCO has been established by the government of India keeping in mind the energy requirement of the Northeastern states and that is one of the entities whose headquarter is here in Shillong, even though their project was terminated. So you scare away all the investors. So to be able to convince them and make them agree to invest in Meghalaya itself is one of the biggest challenges. Once you do it and then somebody comes and scares you away, who is going to come and invest here?” he said.