Shillong, July 6: The retired judge of Allahabad High Court, Ifaqat Ali Khan will lead the inquiry panel to look into the alleged irregularities in MeECL.
Besides the retired judge, the probe team consists of retired IAS officer Manoj Kumar as the administrative member and retired executive director, REC Sunil Kumar as technical member.
The committee will have to complete the task within three months.
A notification in this regard was issued by the Chief Secretary MS Rao on June 30.
The committee has been asked to submit interim reports and make recommendations to the state government from time to time before finalising the report.
One of the terms of references is that the committee will inquire into, record findings and make recommendations concerning the functioning of MeECL and its three subsidiary companies, MePGCL, MePTCL and MePDCL.
The inquiry will cover the period from April 1, 2010 to March 31, 2021.
Earlier, Power Minister James Sangma said the probe panel will also look into all aspects related to Saubhagya scheme after a preliminary CAG report into the alleged anomalies in the project was leaked to the media.
Tender & procurement
The scope of the inquiry will be to examine all major procurements covering both the need as well as the process including fairness in the framing of tender clauses and the tender terms and conditions.
“The inquiry should cover the corporations’ own procurement as well as major procurements made under central government sponsored schemes, state funded schemes and externally-aided projects”, the notification said.
The probe will also specifically look into compliance with rules and regulations governing procurement.
AT & losses
Another focus is to examine the aggregate technical & commercial losses covering aspects of faulty metering, under-billing, poor billing efficiency, poor collection efficiency, billing & collection from industries, pilferage of power and lack of accountability.
“The inquiry should also examine the steps taken by the MeECL management to address the problem of high AT&C losses and whether these steps have the desired results”, the notification said.
Human resource
The inquiry should also look into the recruitment procedures of MeECL and its subsidiaries, their adequacy, examine some of the bulk hiring/recruitments made and also address the issue of surplus/deficit manpower across departments/sections in the corporation. The inquiry should also cover training of personnel and accountability of key personnel.
The state government may assign additional matters/deliverables that require in depth examination, the notification added.
