TMC threatens to take M’laya govt to court for denying power supply

The Trinamool Congress on Friday threatened to drag the Meghalaya Energy Corporation Limited (MeECL) and the Meghalaya government to court if power is not restored within a week in villages across the State.
TMC spokesperson, Saket Gokhale wrote to Deputy Chief Minister in-charge Power, Prestone Tynsong regarding the “criminal practice” of denial of electricity to entire villages due to a few “defaulters”.
“I have been apprised of a shocking and inhuman tactic employed by the state government and the MeECL against poor villagers. Numerous reports and first-hand accounts have said that MeECL shuts down electricity to an entire village when a few villagers are late in paying their power bills. Even when the majority of villagers have paid their bills, the main electricity transformer to the village is shut down on the grounds that a handful of villagers have not made payments,” Gokhale, who is currently visiting Meghalaya, told Tynsong.
Demanding “immediate” restoration of power, the TMC Spokesperson said, denying villagers’ power who have paid their bills on time is “not only atrocious but a criminal act of collectively punishing an entire villagers for the default of a few households.”
“In case action is not taken immediately and the situation is not rectified, the government of Meghalaya and the MeECL would be made respondents in petitions at the appropriate judicial forums including the High Court of Meghalaya,” Gokhale told Tynsong.
“Neither the government of Meghalaya nor the MeECL has any right to deny electricity to villagers who have been making timely payments of their bills,” the TMC spokesperson added.
Giving specific examples of villages, Gokhale said, Rari and Kosi Chora villages under Bajengdoba in North Garo Hills have had the transformer and electricity supply disconnected for the past two months only because a few households had not made their payment.
Similarly power was disconnected in Dingrepa and Matchu Ki villages over the same “frivolous issue” of some villagers not paying their electricity bills on time.
“Let me remind you that under the Indian law and our Constitution there are no provisions for medieval practice like collective punishment. In fact Article 21 of the Constitution of India guarantees life and liberty to every person,” Gokhale noted in the letter.