Meghalaya Midday Meal Workers threaten to cease work

Staff Reporter

Shillong, 16: Midday Meal Workers have threatened to stop performing their school duties from November 2023 if the state government fails to release their three-month pending honorarium.

Speaking to media persons, president of the Cook cum Helper under the PM Poshan scheme Banalis Syiem said that recently the state government has promised to release the pending honorarium of six months but has only released three months.

Syiem said that till date the cook cum helper has not received the honorarium for the month of July, August and September 2023 and this has forced some of the helpers in different parts of the state to refrain from attending their school duties.

“We provide time to the state government till October 2023, to release the pending three months honorarium failing which we will call for a mass agitation by refraining ourselves to performing our duties in our respective assigned school” said Syiem.

Syiem said that this mass agitation will be in the entire state and this will have a great impact on the school children who are benefited from the midday meal scheme.

She added that from time to time Cook cum Helper of the Midday Meal Workers have impressed upon the state government to increase the honorarium but till date, their demands have not been met.

“We urged upon chief minister Conrad K Sangma to take up our issues with prime minister Narendra Modi so that Cook cum Helper of the Midday Meal Workers in the state are benefited from various schemes of the central government” she added.

Move to stop illegal coal transport: Centre seeks time for deployment of CAPF

The Centre has sought for time to respond to the Meghalaya High Court’s order for deployment of 10 companies of central armed police force (CAPF) to arrest the transportation of illegally mined coal in the state.

Hearing a PIL on the matter here today, the full bench headed by Chief Justice Sanjib Banerjee said, “The Union seeks time. Let the matter appear a fortnight hence.”

Earlier in its order passed on April 12, the Court had stated “and the Union Ministry of Home, through the Union Home Secretary, is directed to ensure the deployment of 10 companies of the appropriate Central Armed Police Force to be commanded independently or jointly by the officers from the local police that may be selected by the Court, strictly for the purpose of keeping a vigil on the roads and arresting the illegal transportation of illegally mined coal in the State.”

The Court had also directed the Union to respond on this through the Secretary.

Meanwhile, the Court has also directed, “In the meantime, considering the inadequate ad hoc payments released till now to Justice Katakey, let a further sum of Rs. 3 lakh be paid immediately, in addition to the secretarial expenses for which the directions have been previously issued.”

The next hearing will be held on May 15, 2023.

Shutdown of power projects usher in load shedding

Staff Reporter

Shillong, April 6: The shutdown of important power projects has left Meghalaya with no option but to resort to load-shedding, which is affecting the citizens of the state.

Minister-in-charge Power Abu Taher Mondal told reporters today that despite the scanty rainfall which is affecting the hydel power projects depending on the rainwater, the state is also having some added problems due to the shutdown of important power projects like Khandong and Kopili Hydro Electric Project. Due to this, the state is losing quite a huge quantum of power which is not coming to the grid.

He also informed 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 (load-shedding) is happening’.

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 added.

Mondal said 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 (of 42MW) are also shutdown now while Umiam also, we are also having two units of 60MW which are also like that,” he said adding that the reason is due to damage and requirement for annual maintenance.

The power minister admitted that the people are suffering and that the government is really concerned about the problem and said that the load shedding was done out of compulsion.

“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 while assuring that “the moment we improve our situation, as I told you it depends on how the power is available in the grid or we can go for swapping then we will relax the (load-shedding) period.”

Mondal said when the monsoon season is gone and the state is having surplus power, it used to give the same to some states or some utilities who wanted to take that power and during the lean period the state took back that power from them.

“So now the demand in the exchange is very high and the rate of power is also very high and these utilities which used to bank with us no longer want to bank at this juncture. So all these compounded the present position,” he added.

If there is any action plan to come up with 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 has planned. You must be aware that we have gone for so many MoU signings 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.”

With regards to renewable energy, the power minister said that solar and wind energy is a very costly affairs and require a huge plot of land but there is also a mandate to have this in place.

“We are looking into this angle also,” he stated.