Shillong, Sep 2: The North East Electric Corporation (NEEPCO) is back in the news, all for the wrong reasons.
The Ministry of Power, Government of India has recently launched an enquiry against NEEPCO’s Director (Finance) Baidyanath Maharana for alleged gross irregularities and misuse of power resulting in huge financial losses to the corporation.
The order for enquiry against Maharana was issued by the Ministry of Power through its Deputy Secretary (Vigilance) Kundan Bharati.
According to informed sources, Maharana had a hand in the shifting of the NEEPCO Delhi office from its own building at Bhikaji Cama Place to Sultanpur in the outskirts of New Delhi.
Sources also stated that Maharana had arranged for taking a rented building at Sultanpur owned by Power Tech and as per the agreement, the rent was for a period from February 2025 to February 15, 2028.
NEEPCO had agreed to pay more than Rs 2 crore to Power Tech as rent for the building for the period from February 2025 to February 2028.
Already, an amount of Rs 59,05,900 has been paid to Power Tech by NEEPCO.
However, shortly later, the NEEPCO Delhi office was shifted back to its own building at Bhikaji Cama Place from the rented building at Sultanpur. This has led to unnecessary wastage of public money in rent, interior designs and furniture for the Sultanpur office.
The action by Maharana in shifting the office from its own building at Bhikaji Cama Place has perhaps caught the attention of the Power Ministry including NTPC which owns NEEPCO.
Since NEEPCO has been taken over by NTPC, its board of directors is no longer there and Maharana who is the last director has sullied the image of NEEPCO through such unfair deals that caused a huge loss of public money.
