The Maharashtra State Electricity Distribution Company Limited (MSEDCL) on Thursday, June 27, announced that it is not installing prepaid smart meters at present for common consumers, which includes residential category consumers.
Clarifying further, an MSEDCL official said: "We are installing smart meters at all the feeders at its substations, at distribution transformers and at all the government offices."
The MSEDCL has taken up the feeder segregation, loss reduction, system strengthening and smart metering program under Revamped Distribution Sector Scheme (RDSS) of Ministry of Power (MoP), Government of India (GoI) after due approval of Maharashtra Electricity Regulatory Commission (MERC). This will help in providing reliable and quality power supply to the consumers in Maharashtra.
However, this has been opposed by the activists as consumers may have to face the burden of tariff hike of at least 30 paise per unit if these smart meters are implemented.
As per reports, the cost for installing 2.25 crore MSEDCL smart meters in the state would be around INR 27,000 crore -- which comes to INR 12,000 per meter. The Central assistance would bring in just INR 900 per meter as subsidy.
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