Social activist Greneth Sangma has written to the chairman of the Meghalaya Energy Corporation Ltd (MeECL) to seek for the upgrade of the sub-division office in Baghmara to a full-fledged division office.
In a memo, he informed that the Baghmara office was set up in 1992 with skeletal staff. Since its inception, the situation for the sub-division office in Baghmara, South Garo Hills, has not changed for the better, in terms of both manpower or infrastructure.
“Although an executive engineer has been appointed, in absence of office space, he sits in the office of the executive engineer in Williamnagar. The sub-division is being run by one sub-divisional officer with skeletal staffing (eight linemen: three for emergency duty and five persons are posted for outside duty). To top even that, the emergency staff do not have a vehicle to attend to emergency duty anywhere in the district,” claimed Greneth.
The problem, he added, has been aggravated due to wrongly drawn lines to interior villages. Instead of being strung up on towers, they have been hung up on normal posts and, thus, the lines snap during storms and leave villages without electricity for weeks, he stated.
He further lamented that this had also impacted education as most classes are now online.
Greneth also demanded that at least two linemen for emergency duty needed to be appointed for places like Mindikgre, Erengre, Emangre, Kharukol and Panda among other locations and that at least two vehicles need to be provided for staff to attend to emergencies.
