Minister Incharge of Power AT Mondal on Tuesday warned that the Umiam reservoir has reached its saturation point and if the water further recedes, the government may have to shut down the power plant.
Speaking to reporters, Mondal said the water level at the reservoir is at its lowest till date which is 3165 feet.
“The water level is one of the lowest in the history of Umiam; we are at 3165 feet, so far it was 3170 which was the lowest, so another foot down means we have to shut down Umiam plant,” the Power Minister said.
Asked, he said, “There is a permissible limit of the water level of Umiam dam, upto which we can run our unit, so if it goes below naturally we have to close down.”
Meanwhile, maintaining that the load shedding situation will continue to remain like this, the Power Minister clarified, “Only Tura and Shillong Town are restricted to 8 hours and remaining all are 10 hours.”
Asked about the short, medium, and long-term measures being adopted by the state government to address the problem of frequent power cuts, he said,
“The long term measures take time, you see Leshka power projects started in the 70s and culminated after the millennium, so it’s not an easy process that today we decide and tomorrow it will be coming up. So long term measures should be taken at any cost,” Mondal said.
On Medium term measures, he said, “ The medium term also that also comes what type of project you are upto, so if it hydel, thermal or any other whatever is available, so we are exploring all those issues, hopefully, hour honourable Chief Minister also very keen to see that this power scarcity is minimise at the earliest. It is his idea that we are going upto what extent we can go to find alternative sources of energy.”
On Short term measures the Minister said, “……. whichever way it can be minimised we are going in that direction, there are losses and all these things to be minimised, all these things will be coming.”
Mondal said that the government is looking to minimise the power shortage, and exploring all options.