Chief Minister Conrad Sangma today said that all the power generating units in the State are functioning and the State is generating 4 million units of electricity every day.
Reacting to a query on why people are being forced to bear the brunt of two-hour load shedding when the State has enough power, Sangma attributed it to the power swapping arrangement.
According to him, when the State had no power during the lean period of December-April, the government drew the power from some power companies and now the State is returning back the power to those companies from whom power was taken during that time.
“Even now, 2 million units are being paid back to those companies which gave us power in those tough times,” Sangma said, adding that the swapping will come to an end on September 30.
He also said that the government has changed the model and tied up with NTPC to arrange power in a way that the State doesn’t have to go to extreme power swapping.
Making it clear that the load shedding will continue for two to three hours every day, Sangma said that because of this new model, the MeECL is earning revenues and the net amount of revenues from sales is now positive in many years.
He is also optimistic that the present arrangement would reduce the inconvenience of the people in March-April next year when the State’s power generation would not be that good due to the dry season.
“Rather than 8-9 hours in March-April, it’s better to have 1-2 hours through the year so that we can minimise the inconvenience next year,” Sangma added.
