An unpleasant surprise has been faced by residents of Meghalaya of late – that of unannounced load shedding by the Meghalaya Energy Corporation Ltd (MeECL). This, Chief Minister Conrad K Sangma said today, is due to a shortage of 110 megawatts of power in the state.
Shillong residents have been facing power cuts from 10am to 11am and last night, the lights went out from 1am to 2am. A press release from a concerned group in South West Garo Hills recently said that they are facing six hours of daily outages. This despite the fact that Meghalaya, which generates almost all of its own electricity through hydro projects, has received massive amounts of rain lately.
Sangma said that units of three national companies that Meghalaya buys power from are not functioning at present. The Leshka, Umiam and Umtru projects are either undergoing periodic maintenance or are not functioning for various reasons. This has caused a shortfall of 42MW of power from Leshka and 21MW from Umtru.
Meghalaya had also “borrowed” power over the winter and is now having to return that electricity generated during the rainy season, the CM said.
“We have to repay around 80 million units of power every month,” he explained, adding that the government is hopeful that some units will start working in a week or two.
