Dimapur, Oct. 11 (EMN): The Nagaland Pradesh Congress Committee (NPCC) president, K Therie, on Monday expressed the need to address the erratic power supply in the state, saying that the government can provide the facility if there is political will.
He claimed in a statement that the expenditure caused by damages on domestic appliances and disruption of industrial activities; and the requirement of devices like electric generator, invertors and solar panels at hospitals, hotels and homes due to irregular power supply is more than the department's bills.
He claimed that “load shedding from Grid is not the problem” and so too power generation, saying that the “state requires hardly 200 MW for another decade to come” though power requirement increases annually by about 10-15MW and “setting up 100MW thermal power hardly requires 18 months”.
“The problem is extortion camps. Any big project or industry in the state results in extortion camps being immediately set up. I am speaking from experience as Minister Power. We have struggled hard to commission Likhimro Hydro Project and NEPCO Doyang Hydro Project. The other major problem is transmission and distribution lines,” he pointed.
He alleged that there is “huge corruption in material supplies”, saying that “most of the transformers are overloaded while poles and tension wires breakdown due to non replacement”. He also said that almost all the sub-stations’s cut out face malfunction due to frequent breakdown and reconnections.
Regarding the Power department’s claim of huge shortfall in revenue collection from consumers, he said: “If online bills are paid to treasury under separate head, I do not believe revenue generation should be just 50% of the power purchase.”
He went on to that that he still has ‘high hopes in the department provided they get political support’.