Vet hospital to come up in Shillong

Minister in charge of Animal Husbandry and Veterinary Alexander Laloo Hek today said the government will soon set up the first-ever full-fledged veterinary hospital in Shillong.

“A detailed project report is being prepared for the setting up of the veterinary hospital at an estimated cost of Rs 94 crore,” Hek told reporters.

He said the site for the project will be at Upper Shillong and the proposal will be submitted to the Centre for sanctioning of funds.

Meghalaya is yet to have its own full-fledged veterinary hospital despite completing 50 years of statehood.

Hek said that the state is presently equipped with only veterinary dispensaries under the Directorate of Veterinary in East Khasi Hills, Jaintia Hills and Garo Hills.

“Therefore, it is high time that we get a full-fledged veterinary hospital which will be a great blessing for the people of the state,” he added.

When asked, Hek said that the DPR will be completed by next month while adding that “we will immediately seek financial support from the Centre in order to speed up the setting up of this very important hospital in the state.”

Further, the minister informed that at present the state has over 17 veterinary mobile units which are functioning on a trial basis.

Stating that the state has over 264 veterinary doctors, Hek said, “Once the state has its own dedicated veterinary hospital, the department will find out ways and means to accommodate new doctors, veterinary assistants and other staff.”

State’s power woes to improve: MeECL

The Managing Director of the Meghalaya Energy Corporation Limited (MeELC) Sanjay Goyal has assured that the power situation in the state, which is witnessing eight-nine hours of load-shedding, will improve in the days to come.

“Let me assure you that this situation is going to improve in the days to come,” Goyal told reporters today while responding to a query on the steps taken to lift the load shedding.

“We are expecting some more power from other sources but that might not come very soon. Maybe in the days to come and with some rainfall which we are expecting as per information, we will get production from Leshka and we will try to reduce the (hours of) load shedding,” he added.

He also appealed to the public to understand that the state is going through a tough time due to shortage of power and the corporation is making all-out efforts to address the issue.

Goyal informed that as of now there is a gap between the availability of power and the demand which is there in the state.

“The demand is roughly touching around 250 MW and the availability is roughly around 170 MW which is from our own generation as well as our entitlements from the central generating units – from the NEEPCO, NTPC and from Agartala based power plant,” he said.

“To some extent, we are trying to fulfil (the demand) from the open market corporation which we talk about like purchase of the power and some of it is since we are not able to go to that extent of the purchase of the power because of it is quite costly during the certain period of the day so we are going for the load shedding,” he added.

Goyal said load-shedding is being imposed around 8-9 hours even as he added that “we are trying to reduce in the days to come and we will see if we can procure some cheaper power from the open market.”

The Managing Director further said that shortage of water has greatly impacted the generating units of the Myntdu Leshka Hydro Electric Project as it is off-production for the last 5-6 days adding that “accordingly the water level of Umiam is also decreasing very fast because we are excessively using this water to compensate the loss of power which is there not available through the Myntdu.”

Stating that the corporation is also purchasing power to meet the demand, Goyal said, “We are even going up to Rs 8 for purchase of power whereas the average cost of billing which the regulator is allowing us is roughly Rs 4.5. Therefore, the corporation is taking that hit of around Rs 3 per unit during the peak time.”

“We are trying to see that during the evening time we are not going for load shedding and that is the time the power available in the market is at the very high-cost rate but we are doing the operation just to ensure the supply of the power,” he added.

Goyal said, “It’s not about the failure I think that is too simplistic a statement. See we have to understand one thing, we have only one project in Meghalaya which is dependent on the pondage which is the Umiam. We have a huge reservoir which takes the water all through the year and it is during this lean period we use this water right from the month of November onwards till the month of April or May till the time we get rainfall during the monsoons.”

He said the three units of Myntdu Leshka are being operated during peak monsoon and are generating 126 MW of power.