The Trinamool Congress (TMC) has hit out at the Meghalaya government over collective punishment meted out to entire villages in Garo Hills by the state-owned Meghalaya Energy Corporation Ltd (MeECL).
It has been known for the MeECL not to fix broken transformers unless a certain percentage of the population are up to date with paying their electricity bills.
TMC national spokesperson Saket Gokhale today attacked the Meghalaya Democratic Alliance government through Twitter, threatening to take the matter to court.
In a series of tweets, Gokhale described this as a “barbaric” practice to cut off electricity for an entire village “even if one or two villagers fail to pay their bills.”
He further added that transformers are shut off for erring villages and he has written to Power Minister Prestone Tynsong on the issue.
Villages that are suffering in this manner were named as Rari, Kosi Chora, Dingrepa and Matchu Ki.
In a letter to Tynsong, Gokhale said, “This is not only atrocious but also a criminal act of collectively punishing an entire village for the default of a few households. Neither the government of Meghalaya nor the MeECL has any right to deny villagers who have been making timely payments of their bills.”
He described such practices as blackmail, coercion and intimidation.
Government departments have themselves been guilty of paying their electricity bills late and, thus, to turn off the lights in whole villages is an example of hypocrisy, the TMC said, adding that it is another failure of the so-called double engine government at the state and central levels.
