On the day of his ‘farewell’, controversial Managing Director (MD) of the Tripura State Electricity Corporation Ltd ( TSECL), MS Kele faced anger of Contractors at the TSECL premises on Saturday in Agartala – hundreds of Contractors openly accused MS Kele of withholding their dues unnecessarily as well as of corruption and nepotism.
Kele was scheduled to leave the state on Saturday itself and as soon as he arrived from Tripura Sundari temple to receive ‘farewell’, he faced the wrath of the contractors who started raining abuses on him and ultimately forced him out of his car. The contractors were not receiving their dues even after successfully completing implementation of a Central Project.
The contractors raised serious allegations against Kele and openly accused him of ‘blatant and brazen financial corruption – amounting to the tune of Rs 200 crore or more, indulging in taking bribes and other irregularities, depriving locals giving away contracts to outsiders on unbelievable higher rates and creating his own caucus to help him making money etc”’.
Under fire from the contractors –a bit short of physical assault -Kele agrees to meet the angry contractors in the conference hall.
In the meeting the outgoing controversial MD ultimately signed a memorandum of Understanding with the agitating contractors promising payment of the dues to the contractors. He then left the State.
The accusations against Kele were, however, not new as since his arrival similar allegations were leveled against him time and again and due to his mishandling and incompetent management several TSECL engineers had taken voluntary retirement. Tripura Times happened to be the first newspaper that carried out several issues and full page news giving complete details of his inefficient management. Later, all other news media made screaming headlines also against him but somehow Kele remained unscathed and even managed to get extension. Of late, there were several news items relating to corruption charges and demand for probe against him attained high pitch.
However, after the police arrival the situation came under control and Kele escaped physical assault.
Later he held a meeting with the agitating contractors and signed a MoU. The memorandum said : “There was a delegation from contractors which met with TSECL Management on the issues related to payments to contractors under Soubhagya Scheme’. The issues related to the past payments which were pending for technical reasons and regularization of a few left over formalities.
This meeting was unplanned as TSECL Management was not informed as the previous assurance was already conveyed during the last meeting with the representative of the contractors on 19 Jan 2022.
However, since the contractors have come for the discussions, TSECL Management discussed the matter with the representatives of the contractors.
In line with deliberations the following points were discussed by both the sides:
(1) The action for payment will start immediately after getting, directives from BOD, TSECL for which meeting is scheduled during first week of February 2022.
(2) Fund disbursement will start in next fortnight after the Board Meeting and after completion of requisite formalities for requisition of documents from all Divisions.
(3) As the closure Proposal of the Scheme has already been processed and sent to the Nodal Agency, the remaining fund disbursement will be taken tip as per release of funds by the Central Nodal Agency. TSECL will take necessary steps immediately to receive the fund from the Nodal Agency.”
The MoU was signed by MD MS Kele and Director Technical Debashish Sarkar and Director Finance Sarvajit Singh Dogra on behalf of the TSECL.
It was after the MoU was signed Kele left the TSECL campus in a hurry.