Retired judge of Allahabad High Court Justice Ifaqat Ali Khan will head the independent inquiry into the various irregularities and scams in the Meghalaya Energy Corporation Limited (MeECL).
According to a notification issued today, the probe panel will also include retired IAS officer Manoj Kumar as administrative member and former Rural Electrification Corporation executive director Sunil Kumar as technical member.
The inquiry committee has been asked to submit its final report within three months. At the same time, the probe panel has been asked to submit interim reports and recommendations to the State government from time to time prior to submission of the final report.
According to the terms of reference, the committed shall inquire, check the records and make recommendations regarding the functioning of MeECL and its three subsidiaries covering the period from April 1, 2020 to March 31, 2021 related to procurement, Aggregate Technical and Commercial (AT&C) loss and human resource management.
As far as procurement is concerned, the probe panel shall enquire into all the major procurements made by MeECL covering both the need and the process including fairness in the framing of tender clauses and the tender terms and conditions.
“The inquiry should cover the corporation’s own procurement as well as major procurements made under the Central government sponsored schemes, State funded schemes and externally aided projects. The inquiry should specifically look into compliance with rules and regulations governing procurements,” the notification said.
Moreover, the inquiry shall “critically examine” the procurement rules and procedures of MeECL and its subsidiaries, and benchmark the same against the procurement rules and procedures of the State government and some of the better run energy corporations in other North East states.
On AT&C loss, the inquiry committee will examine at length the losses covering aspects of faulty metering, under billing, poor billing efficiency, poor collection efficiency, billing and collection from industries, pilferage of power and lack of accountability.
“The inquiry should also examine the steps taken by MeECL management to address the problem of high AT&C losses and whether these steps have had the desired results,” the notification added.
As far as human resource management is concerned, the inquiry shall look into recruitment procedures in the MeECL and its subsidiaries, their adequacy, bulk hiring and recruitment made and also address the issue of surplus or deficit manpower across departments and sections in MeECL, training and accountability of key personnel.
