Shillong: The Public Accounts Committee (PAC) of the 60-member Meghalaya Assembly on Tuesday issued show cause notices to several revenue loss departments and sought replies within a week on the reason for the departments incurring loss.
PAC Chairman Saleng Sangma said that Principal Secretaries of the loss-making departments have been issued the notices seeking their replies on the losses.
“The taxation department has incurred a loss of Rs 89 lakh while the excise department has incurred a loss amounting to Rs 57.83 crore. Some of the departments issued notices were revenue, transport, and others,” Sangma said.
“Similar losses have been incurred by other departments and therefore the Principal Secretaries of those departments have been asked to explain the reason for the losses and how to stop such loss in future,” he said.
Meanwhile, the PAC also inquired from the power department why consumers were still being billed, somewhat the same amount, in their electricity bill despite the long duration of load-shedding.
Meghalaya is undergoing load shedding for the past couple of months. The load shedding duration is for about eight hours in several parts of the stat
Several consumers are complaining that despite the power cuts, the electricity bill amount remained unchanged.
“Since there are power cuts people logically should be getting electricity bills with reduced amounts compared to the pre-load shedding time,” Sangma, who is also opposition Congress Chief Whip, said.
Moreover, he said even if the power department is buying power at a higher price, the same extra financial burden should not be passed on to the consumers.
