SHILLONG, JUL 16: Chief Minister Conrad K Sangma on Thursday said the financial stability of Meghalaya Energy Corporation Limited has improved significantly, with regular payments of dues, salaries, pensions and dues to power agencies being made.

After chairing a review meeting of the power department, Sangma said the government is working on both financial consolidation and power augmentation to strengthen the sector.

“We also discussed the overall financial health of the Power Department and MeECL in particular. I am very happy to see that the overall financial stability has improved to a very large extent in MeECL,” the Chief Minister said.

He added that collections have also gone up and that the corporation is now clearing its financial obligations on a regular basis.

“On a regular basis, different financial components such as loan and interest payments are being made. Salaries and pensions are being paid, and payments to the different power agencies are also being made on a regular basis. Collection has also improved drastically,” Sangma said.

The CM expressed optimism that continued efforts to clear past dues would lead to long-term stability.

“Slowly and steadily, we expect that as we are able to clear our past dues, in a matter of 5-6 years we will see very strong stability coming up in MeECL, which will be of great help to the Power Department and the state as a whole,” he said.

On power generation, Sangma said the government has given approval to move forward on proposals to augment supply, including the Leshka Stage-II project.

“We have also worked on enhancing power augmentation in the state, where we are exploring the possibility of additional power generation through the Leshka Stage-II project and some other projects. We also reviewed those today and I have given the green signal to take the discussions and the matter forward,” he said.

The meeting also focused on improving efficiency on the demand side.

“We are very concerned and are working towards ensuring that the demand side is made more efficient. There are many ways in which we can manage and make our demand more efficient by ensuring that we are able to save more power and create more efficiency in the system,” Sangma said.

He said the Power Department will now work out detailed measures and that monitoring will be done regularly.

“All of these matters were discussed in detail. The Power Department is now chalking out ways and means, and we will be regularly monitoring these aspects,” the Chief Minister added.