Shillong, April 5: The shutdown of important power projects has left Meghalaya with no option but to resort to load-shedding, which is affecting the citizens of the state.
Minister in-charge Power, Abu Taher Mondal, told reporters on Wednesday that despite the scanty rainfall which is affecting the hydel power projects depending on the rainwater, the state is also having some added problems due to the shutdown of important power projects like Khandong and Kopili Hydro Electric Project. Due to this, the state is losing quite a huge quantum of power, which is not coming to the grid.
He also informed the state has its own problems with the power projects at home due to renovation and repair. “We are not able to put the optimum power in the grid and due to that this (load-shedding) is happening,” he said.
The power minister said the central share of power is around 72 million units and the state’s own generation is around 16 million units.
When asked, Mondal said the power projects under shutdown include 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).
“As far as the Myntdu Leshka hydel power project is concerned, two units (of 42MW) are also shutdown now while Umiam also we are having two units of 60MW which are also like that,” he said, adding that the reason being due to damage and requirement for annual maintenance.
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The power minister admitted that the people are suffering and that the government is really concerned about the problem and said that the load shedding was done out of compulsion.
“Definitely, the government and the MeECL are working round the clock to see that if any relief can be given to the consumers,” he said while assuring that “the moment we improve our situation, as I told you, it depends on how the power is available in the grid or we can go for swapping then we will relax the (load shedding) period.”
Mondal said when the monsoon season is gone and the state is having surplus power, it used to give the same to some states or some utilities who wanted to take that power and during the lean period the state takes back that power from them.
“So now…the demand in the exchange is very high and the rate of power is also very high and these utilities, which used to bank with us no longer want to bank at this juncture. So all these compounded the present position,” he added.
If there is any action plan for a long term solution to the power shortage in the state, Mondal said, “We have planned a lot of things. Of course earlier also the state government has planned. You must be aware that we have gone for so many MoU signing with the independent power producers but somehow this could not take place. Those who want to start have some issues so we are seeing whether these issues can be sorted out or not. If that is done that way also we can look forward to the future.”
With regards to renewable energy, the power minister said that solar and wind energy are a very costly affair and require a huge plot of land but there is also a mandate to have this in place. “We are looking into this angle also,” he added.
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