Shillong,April 5: Power Minister AT Mondal on Wednesday cited shutdown of some power projects as the reason for shortage of power in Meghalaya resulting in load shedding.
However, sources said that these power projects were not shut down recently as they have been in the same situation for a few years.
Mondal told reporters that the power projects under shutdown include Kopili stage-I of 200 MW from where the state gets 35MW as share, Khandong power station of 50 MW (state share is 8.51MW) and Kopili stage-II of 25 MW (state share is 3.45 MW)
“As far as the Myntdu Leshka hydel power project is concerned, two units (42MW) are also shutdown and for Umiam, the two units of 60MW are also like that,” he said.
The reason is due to damage and annual maintenance, he said.
Mondal told reporters that beyond the hydel power projects depending on rainwater, the state is hav added problems due to the shut down of important power projects like Khandong and Kopili hydro electric projects thereby state losing huge quantum of power which is not coming to the grid.
According to Mondal, the state also has its own problems with the power projects at home due to renovation and repair
“We are not able to put the optimum power in the grid and due to that this loadshedding is happening”, he said.
The power minister said the central share of power is around 72 million units and the state’s own generation is around 16 million units.
“At present we are having a liability of around 88 million units and our requirement is 200 million units. So we are short by 112 million units and this is the hardest fact we are facing now,” he said.
“Definitely, the government and the MeECL are working round the clock to see that if any relief can be given to the consumers,” he said.
Mondal said the charge for power exchange is very high aand ‘the utilities which used to bank with us no longer want to bank at this juncture’.
On the action plan for a long term solution to the power shortage in the state, Mondal said, “We have planned a lot of things. Of course earlier also the state government had planned. You must be aware that we have gone for so many MoU signing with the independent power producers but somehow this could not take place. Those who want to start have some issues so we are seeing whether these issues can be sorted out or not. If that is done that way also we can look forward to the future”.
