EXCLUSIVE
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Amidst the fear of the public about the drying up of water bodies in the Meghalaya, Sanjay Goyal Chairman and Managing Director (CMD) of Meghalaya Energy Corporation Limited (MeECL) said due to the strategic planning in power generation, the state is in comfortable position for the next five to six weeks if the rainfall delays further in Meghalaya.
Talking to Meghalaya News 24, Goyal said the generation is planned keeping in mind that there is no loadshedding may be till the first week of June.
“Situation is quite comfortable for us as you are observing, the water level of the Umiam which is normally the source of generation for us during the lean period we have tried to maintained it at the optimum level right from the month of December onwards so we have planned our generation keeping in mind that there is no loadshedding may be till the first week of June,” Goyal said.
He further added, “Going by the reports of the IMD we are accepting rains after that so we have planned our generation accordingly and additionally we have taken 35 Megawatt of NTPC power which we de-allocated it for one year to Uttarakhand that power will be also available to us during this lean period .”
After may be first week of June, if there is some shortage of power in terms of availability we will make those commercial arrangements either from the purchase from the market or through power banking. As of now there is no scheduled loadshedding.
“ I think we should be comfortable as far as the power scenario is concerned for the next maybe one and one and half months, hopefully by that time we should have the monsoon season arriving and we will be comfortable after that,” he said.
Asked, Goyal added, “ Other places like Leshka and all we are not accounting for lean season, those places are not considered as part of our demand projection. The only place which we account for our supply size management is only Umiam. We are going ahead with our generation. We do have our water level available and we planned our generation by utalizing that power for maybe Five to six weeks.”
However, in addition to this, the state has also planned commercial arrangements and power banking facilities as well in case of less rainfall even after the first week of June.