The Meghalaya Progressive Alliance (MPA) coalition Government has partially fulfilled its election promise by deciding to scrap the Memorandum of Agreements (MOAs) inked with two private power companies and rewriting MOAs with four other companies.The Cabinet on Thursday decided to scrap the MOAs which the previous Congress-led Meghalaya Democratic Alliance (MDA) government had signed with Jaypee Group and Athena Project Private Limited. These two companies had been assigned Kynshi stage II, Umngot and Kynshi stage 1 hydro power projects. The scrapping of the three power projects worth 1,100 MW with the two companies have led to a financial loss of Rs 6,600 crore. After the Cabinet meeting, Meghalaya Power Minister Conrad K Sangma said: “But the Government will re-write the MOAs with four other private companies.” The four companies-ETA Star Infrastructure Limited, NEEPCO, SEW Energy Limited, Seven Sisters Energy Limited- had been assigned power projects below 100 MW. Justifying the scrapping of the deal with Jaypee and Athena, Sangma said: “We have decided to scrap the MOAs with Jaypee Group and Athena Project Private Limited. The previous government assigned power projects above 100 MW without following the international competitive bidding.” The Cabinet felt that the terms and conditions of the projects which are below 100 MW need to be reviewed to make them stringent so that maximum benefits reach the people and not these private power companies. Sangma said: “The Cabinet felt that there is a need to re-write the MOAs with these four companies as the present clauses in the agreement do not have provisions to provide local employment." The Cabinet wants to make it mandatory that these companies should reserve 80 per cent jobs for the locals.
