Shillong, Aug 10: Deputy Chief Minister in-charge Power Prestone Tynsong on Wednesday said Meghalaya and other states in the North East are being treated poorly and considered a poor performance state as far as distribution companies (discoms) are concerned.

“(Being) ranked poorly is not only Meghalaya, you need to understand that. In the NE, in almost all the states we are being treated poorly, we are being considered as a poor performance state as far as discoms are concerned,” Tynsong told reporters.

His statement came after the Meghalaya Power Distribution Company Limited (MePDCL) was placed at the bottom 52 rank with ‘D’ grading in the 10th Integrated Rating Exercise covering 71 power distribution utilities comprising 46 state discoms, 14 private discoms and 11 power departments across all states and union territories of India.

Stating that the MeECL has lots of liabilities and outstanding debts, Tynsong said, “We need to ultimately bail it out by the state government. We are doing that and now some reformation has started to take place, that is why recently the cabinet has already agreed that we should appoint a technocrat person to head the MeECL.”

He said the process of appointing the technocrat has just started. “We will wait for a few more months, we will ultimately appoint a technocrat and I am sure by doing this we will be able to resolve these issues.”

“As far as Meghalaya is concerned, we are trying our best to improve it that is why as I said we realized one thing we never realized one issue and that issue is bringing in a professional to head the corporation but this time we realized it and therefore, the government has taken a very toughest decision that we will bring a technocrat to run the corporation,” Tynsong added.

The deputy chief minister however assured that reformation will take place within three months’ time after a technocrat takes over as Managing Director of the MeECL.