Shillong, June 8: Today Power Minister and the Chairman of MeECL call on the Chief Minister to discuss the distribution franchisees, which the REC has put in the conditions for the Atmanirbhar loan to be sanctioned in the second tranche.
The CMD, MeECL and the Power Department have held several discussions in the past three to four months regarding the issue of giving 100% budgetary support for the 1,345 Crore loan.
But when this condition was put in the Finance Department, they were of the opinion that the State Government and the Finance Department should not take the entire burden of this loan and some part of it should also be put on MeECL’s shoulders and hence the Finance Department proposed that at least 25% of this loan repayment amount should be in some way or the other incorporated into the overall improvement and efficiency of the MeECL.
And that is where the REC proposed that certain distribution circles can be then given for management to the REC. The proposal has both pros and cons. On the positive side, if the government decides to give the entire guarantee for the loan, the distribution franchises will not be given but the negative side of this is that if that were the case then government has to pay additional 580 Crores in the next 10 years.
If we(Government)go ahead with this, some of the circles will be given to REC for management, but at the same time, the finance pressure will be lesser.
The discussions with Power Minister and CMD revolved around the point that if the Finance Department agrees to give full budgetary provision then MeECL also has to agree to certain terms and conditions on how to improve the overall efficiency of the Corporation.
Therefore on those points, the Hon’ble Minister informed that he had a meeting with his officials also and there was a discussion on how this could be moved forward and some proposals were given which have a lot of merit.
The discussions were very positive and the matter is going to be discussed in the cabinet tomorrow at 12:30 pm and the Cabinet will take a call on how we should move forward but the Power Minister, the Department and MeECL have once again appealed that none of the distribution circles should be given out as a franchisee and they have again requested the Finance Department to take the entire guarantee of the loan so we will positively examine this and we will do what is in the best interests of MeECL and also the best interest of the state government.
