State

Congress alleges anomaly in MeECL appointment

Zenith reiterates James removal

Shillong, May 17: Congress spokesperson Zenith Sangma on Monday alleged that the appointment to the post of director-distribution at MeECL was anomalous and should be cancelled.
In a statement to the media, the senior Congress leader said the appointment of MK Chetry to the post was done without following “pre-defined criteria”.
“This promotion does not appear to be fair. We demand that the government reviews its decision to avoid feeling of deprivation among local tribal engineers… It has demoralised the local senior chief engineers of MeECL. The government should immediately cancel this order till the enquiry is over. May be this government is fond of keeping the senior posts vacant. In the project wing of MePDCL, there appears to be a lot of anomalies,” Zenith said.
Zenith pointed out that despite Speaker and UDP leader Metbah Lyngdoh’s request, the government went ahead with the appointment.
Chetry was appointed director-distribution on May 3. Zenith alleged he had only five months’ experience as chief engineer whereas the criteria mention at least a year’s experience as chief engineer.
Power Minister James Sangma had given a statement to the media saying Chetry was appointed because he was the most senior engineer at MeECL. However, Zenith rejected this claim saying the statement was “not correct as per the record”. In fact, one official, Marchborn Marbaniang, had to move the High Court after Chetry superseded him as chief engineer last year.
The Congress MLA further alleged that last October, the CMD of MeECL allowed the officer of the rank of superintending engineer to prepare DPR, which is generally done by the chief engineer.
“There is a narrative that this is done in order to undertake some manipulations. It is alleged that this is done with involvement of Hon’ble Power Minister, Mr James Sangma,” he said, adding that the Atmanirbhar loan of Rs 1,345 crore was taken for vested interest.
Zenith reiterated that James and the CMD should be removed immediately.
“The present power minister cannot be allowed to continue for even one day. They (the MDA government) have made mess of MeECL. I have been raising these issues time and again. This is the time to act. We can’t allow outsourcing of substation… Some faulty tenders for maintenance of power station are already floated. The Hon’ble Chief Minister, Meghalaya has ordered to set up independent enquiry. We demand that enquiry be conducted by an independent body and premium agency like CBI,” he added.

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