A proposal to overhaul the board structure of the Meghalaya Energy Corporation Ltd (MeECL) and its subsidiaries was accepted by the state cabinet today.
Currently, MeECL has a Chairman and Managing Director (CMD) but the posts will now be divided.
The non-executive Chairman will now be the Power Minister ex-officio and the MD will be an official of the IAS cadre/lateral entry or technocrat who will be selected by a transparent process.
The MD will also be the MD of the three subsidiaries – Meghalaya Energy Power Generation Corporation Ltd, Meghalaya Energy Power Distribution Corporation Ltd and Meghalaya Energy Power Transmission Corporation Ltd.
The chairpersons of the three subsidiary companies will be the Chief Secretary, Additional Chief Secretary or Principal Secretary in charge of Power.
This division of responsibility is necessary because the CMD was always a senior official who had multiple responsibilities and could not give the necessary time to run the financially struggling corporation.
“The first option is to get a technocrat and lateral entry into the system which has never been discussed or thought of before. We have decided that we need a technocrat to run MeECL,” Sangma said. “There are technical factors that officials who don’t have experience of the power sector will not understand, so a person with experience of running PSUs (public sector utilities) would be preferable.”
