Is Meghalaya heading for another round of load shedding?
The Power Grid has today issued a notice to Meghalaya Energy Corporation Limited (MeECL) for regulation of electricity supply to the State from midnight of April 14 for the failure by MeECL to pay the outstanding dues towards transmission charges.
According to the notice, MeECL has consistently failed to clear the full dues against the monthly bills raised on it towards transmission of tariff despite regular follow up by the Central Transmission Utility (CTU) and earlier promises made by MeECL.
Power Grid said that the total dues of MeECL have grown to Rs 56.89 crore till today, out of which an amount Rs 46.51 crore is outstanding for more than 45 days.
“An amount of Rs 38.4 crore has crossed 60 days and an amount of Rs 26.51 crore has even crossed 90 days based on the bills raised by CTU,” said the notice served by Power Grid.
“CTU has been mandated with the responsibility of billing, collection and disbursement of transmission charges towards ISTS (Inter-State Transmission System) licensees from all the DICs (Designated ISTS Customers). Such huge outstanding dues as brought out above are seriously affecting the cash flows of all the ISTS licensees and causing an adverse impact on the ability to carry on as a business enterprise and to fulfill loan repayment liabilities towards creation of transmission assets,” the Power Grid said.
Power Grid also said that in case of failure by MeECL to clear the total outstanding dues of more than 60 days latest by April 8, the regulation of power supply of MeECL through the long term access shall be effected from midnight of April 14.
The quantum of power to be regulated is 50 MW of power drawn by MeECL from the ISTS network.
The period of regulation of power supply will be initially for one month or till clearing of the dues outstanding for more than 60 days.
The power supply that will be regulated will be from power plants of NEEPCO, NHPC and NTPC from which MeECL has long term access. The quantum shall be in proportion of the allocation from the three generating companies will be decided by North Eastern Regional Load Despatch Centre (NERLDC) based on merit order of despatch.
