After smartphones, smart homes and of course the smart city, it’s time for smart electricity meters. Soon, digital power meters in 70% households of the State capital will be replaced with smart meters by the Central Zone Electricity Distribution Company (Central Discom). This would help consumers to get information about consumption, tariff, bill due date, and penalty for defaulting on payments automatically on their mobile phones.

To eliminate human intervention for collecting meter readings and to facilitate remote disconnection and reconnection of EB services, the discom is going to replace the meters of about 3.5 lakh consumers with smart meters. Thus, of the overall 4.75 lakh domestic consumers in the city, at least 73% will have smart meters. The number of these smart meters could be increased further, and its installation will start within next three months. Zahid Aziz Khan, GM city circle (East Discom) said, “These meters are aimed at increasing revenue by plugging losses as well as increasing ease of consumers. There are several features in these meters, including remote reading facility, remote connection and disconnection. It will also record data of supply hours and record tampering events if any. In the first phase we would install these meters in areas where the losses are neither too less nor too much. He further said that because these meters are costly and if installed in high loss areas or theft-prone areas there are chances of damage.

In the areas where the revenue per unit is already high as of now, the smart meters will not be installed there. However, based on the experience, it could be installed in all the houses in future. These smart meters are not only beneficial for discom, but it is equally beneficial for consumers, like in case of consumer not being available when meter reader visits for reading, the reading is not done and next month the consumer gets higher bill, now this will not happen, then if there is any dispute where we claim that adequate power was supplied, consumer claims disruption in supplies, this will also be recorded by the smart meter, the official added.