The State government has again extended the period of the independent inquiry to probe the various alleged irregularities and corruption in Meghalaya Energy Corporation Limited (MeECL).
According to a notification issued yesterday, the term of the independent inquiry commission constituted on July 29, 2021 has been extended by another two months. This is the second extension of the probe panel.
It may be mentioned that the independent inquiry commission comprises retired judge of Allahabad High Court Justice Ifaqat Ali Khan, retired IAS Manoj Kumar, and retired Executive Director of Rural Electrification Corporation (REC) Sunil Kumar.
As per the terms and reference, the commission will inquire and make recommendations concerning the functioning of MeECL and its three subsidiary companies-Meghalaya Power Generation Corporation Ltd (MePGCL), Meghalaya Power Transmission Corporation Ltd (MePTCL) and Meghalaya Power Distribution Corporation Ltd (MePDCL).
The inquiry will be done for the period between April 1, 2010, to March 31, 2021, and the committee will focus on three core areas namely Procurement, Aggregate Technical and Commercial (AT&C) losses and Human Resource Management.
The commission will inquire about all major procurements made by the department including fairness in framing tender clauses and the tender terms and conditions. The committee will look into procurements made under state-funded, central government-sponsored schemes and Externally Aided Projects (EAPs).
In addition to that, the committee will also verify if MeECL complied with the governing procedures while making the procurement and benchmark the same against other energy corporations in the North East states.
Further, the commission will examine at length the Aggregate Technical and Commercial (AT&C) 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. It will also examine the steps taken by the MeECL management to address the problems of high AT&C losses and if these steps have had the desired results.
The commission will also investigate matters pertaining to the recruitment procedures of the MeECL and its subsidiaries, issue of manpower across all departments including transparency in the hiring process, deficit/surplus manpower to run the corporation etc.
