New Delhi: The Ministry of Power has made prepaid Smart meters mandatory across all states in India starting 1 April 2019.
In an exclusive interview with Hindustan Times, R K Singh Union minister of state for power and renewable energy spoke on the government’s move to put a check on rising electricity thefts.
“We are pushing for net metering. Most DISCOMs [electricity distribution companies] had to outsource it. But consumers complained about inflated bills etc. Due to this, we will be making it mandatory for all states to shift to smart prepaid meters from April 1, 2019,” said Singh.
This government’s move will introduce prepaid electricity recharge cards.
These new Smart meters are a part of advanced solutions which will measure and record electricity use at different intervals of the day and also send the information to the energy supplier.
Recording electricity use in homes will allow consumers to efficiently use the electricity which shall also help in reducing power wastage along with financial savings.
Talking about the problems in the process the minister said, “But there is a problem of technology. …meters are not available. We are, however, pushing it. We have added 2.26 crore new consumers. It is a record. The fact that we have added so many consumers means billing and collections have become difficult.”
“DISCOMs will benefit as they will get payment in advance. This means just like a prepaid SIM connection for a mobile, which can be recharged and used again, electricity will be used in the same form. This will help poor consumers. Instead of mandatorily paying for 30 days, they can now pay for the days or hours they would like to consume as per their requirements,” he added.