It was discovered that many residents in just the revenue circles of Tikrikilla, Phulbari, Dadenggre, Rajabala, and Selsella have been without electricity despite the fact that their names appear in the consumer list of MePDCL as scheme beneficiaries, which is indicative of the worst for the Saubhagya scheme in Meghalaya.
A few months after the NPP-led administration took office in the state with James Sangma serving as the Minister of Power, the Saubhagya scheme was introduced in the state. In order to ensure last-man connectivity to the power grid, the plan intended to provide electricity to the state’s 13,9267 households.
The program itself aims to provide free connections for the last mile of electrification in communities and homes. These would entail installing transformers as needed, laying low-tension power lines, and creating connections for domestic wire. The project was funded by general funds, and contractors were hired under contracts to complete the full setup.
Since its inception, Saubhagya has encountered numerous issues, with the original contracting itself being shrouded in secrecy. The final recipient of the contract was a company named Satnam Global, which the CAG subsequently discovered had overcharged for its purchases by more than Rs 149 crores.
The same ministry also hired it to electrify many areas of the Garo Hills, a move that is equally puzzling and fraught with uncertainty.
The entire villages included in the program were visible on a list of 39 villages within these revenue circles for which information was accessible. This would imply that all of these homes were already wired. However, a walk to some of these villages revealed that the majority of these homes had zero connections to the electrical grid and, as a result, no electricity.
Even more intriguing, though, is the fact that many of these households were receiving energy bills proving their data had been recorded as electricity consumers.
News Mania Desk
