Shillong, April 8: The Coordination Committee of Registered MeECL (Employees) Associations and Unions (CCORMAU) on Wednesday sought for an independent probe into the alleged ‘irregularities’ in MeECL.
The committee also reiterated that an officer not below the rank of Additional Chief Secretary be appointed as Chairman-Cum-Managing Director, MeECL being the largest PSU in the State.
The union has also threatened to agitate if the Government fails to address their concerns and demands within April 26.
Though the union had their own arguments and opinions on several issues related to power department, however, when reasonable questions were asked to them, they preferred to remain silent.
They refused to comment on the silence of Meghalaya Energy Corporation Limited engineers over the years when industries and other government departments failed to pay the outstanding dues worth more than Rs 500 cr.
CCORMAU president PK Chullet, was caught off guard when asked why they are against the One-Time Settlement Scheme which will waive off Delayed Payment Charges (DPC) for domestic and industrial consumers to recover outstanding dues.
Chullet tried to justify that the scheme was benefiting only a few categories of consumers.
Notably, the MeECL had recovered Rs 19,02,47,452 of the Rs 554.72 crore of outstanding dues from customers through the OTS Scheme.
On April 6, the MePDCL announced that a rigorous disconnection drive would be carried out, with effect from April 16, against all the consumers, who are yet to avail the One-time Settlement Scheme (OSS) and still have outstanding dues. They have been given a chance to pay the electricity bills latest by April 15.
When enquired about the stand of the CCORMAU when the previous government signed the Power Purchase Agreement (PPA) with National Thermal Power Corporation (NTPC) in 2007, Chullet said, “The incident happened decades ago. Maybe whatever was done back then was done according to the Industrial Policy, we don’t know. We cannot comment anything on what our predecessors have done.”
