PANAJI
The Central government has directed the States not to impose any financial penalties on consumers based on maximum demand recorded following installation of smart meters.
In a written reply to Rajya Sabha, Union Minister of State for Power Shripad Naik said that the Centre’s guidelines, advisories and Standard Operating Procedures (SoPs) for smart meters explicitly provide that there should be “no penalty on consumers based on maximum demand recorded by smart meters”. The guidelines also call for a mechanism to recover past arrears from consumers in easy instalments.
Even before the installation of smart meters , Goa introduced penalties linked to excess load, triggering widespread complaints from consumers who received substantially higher electricity bills. In fact, the consumers complain of inflated bills, even today. The issue subsequently became a major point of contention, with consumers questioning the basis for the additional charges.
The Centre’s smart-meter guidelines also require meters to adhere to relevant technical and quality standards and BIS certification. They provide for random installation of check meters to verify smart-meter readings and make such installation mandatory when a consumer raises a complaint, thereby allowing independent verification of readings.
The guidelines further require smart-meter systems to provide consumers with mobile applications to monitor consumption, recharge in small denominations and receive low-balance and emergency-credit alerts. Multiple recharge options, consumer feedback mechanisms, effective complaint-resolution systems and consumer-awareness campaigns have also been prescribed.
According to the State electricity department, nearly one lakh smart meters have been installed across the State, until the project was kept on hold.
“The benefits provided by smart meters for consumers include accurate billing due to elimination of manual meter reading errors, greater transparency, mobile application-based consumption monitoring and enablement of Time-of-Day consumption,” MoS said.
