IMPHAL, December 17: Village chiefs of more than 40 villages of Thanlon Assembly Constituency today met with their MLA Vungzagin Valte who is also a parliamentary secretary and discussed ways to speed up and expedite the rural electrification process of all villages of the constituency.
The meeting held at the conference hall of the Manipur State Power Distribution Company Limited was also attended by MSPDCL managing director R Sudan, MSPDCL executive director P Khuman, Thanlon SDO Joel Haokip, Mualnuam SDO Thangboi Gangte and MSPDCL AGM Thangboi Gangte.
During the meeting, the 12 DDUGJY Scheme, electrified villages under IX plan of the Rajiv Gandhi Grameen Vidyutikaran Yojana (RGGVY) and other issues.
The MLA, chiefs and their representatives and the officials had a thorough discussion on the issue.
It is also informed that the revision of the infrastructure project and the plan to electrify the whole villages of the constituency is the first to be taken up in the entire State under the initiative and instruction of the Chief Minister.
The chiefs and their representatives shared their grievances before the officials which include faulty transformers, which the PS assured to look into at the earliest, before declaring that the process of village electrification of the entire constituency was to be completed by the first or second month of next year.
It may be mentioned that the MLA had once declared his constituency as the dark constituency.
Meanwhile, during the meeting, the company officials and the village chiefs signed a memorandum of understanding declaring that the non-technical works will be allotted to the villagers so that the process will help in generating employment among the local populace.
As of date, out of the 69 villages in Thanlon constituency, only 18 villages are presently electrified.
The MLA also instructed the officials to start work this very month and that no matter the number of households in a particular village all 69 villages must be electrified at the same time.
He further instructed the officials to check for BPL card holders who are to be exempted from paying bills.
In fact this first of a kind effort was made after the MLA urged the Chief Minister to ensure electrification of Thanlon A/c a priority.
While the MSPDCL managing director also told that this was the product of the State government policy that no house should remain without electricity while admitting that the total electrification process still has a long way to go.