This story is from February 23, 2020

Over 8 lakh MSEDCL meters declared faulty

Over 8 lakh MSEDCL meters declared faulty
Nagpur: Even as finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman wants to replace all existing electricity meters with smart meters, MSEDCL is unable to get bids for them since the last two years.
It had installed radio frequency (RF) meters, a less advanced type of smart meter, but lakhs of them have become faulty and had to be replaced. The cost of these meters was Rs124 crore and it will be recovered from hapless consumers by way of higher power tariff
A source in MSEDCL said that the discom had purchased and installed about 26 lakh RF meters in last two years.
“These meters belonged to HPL, Genius, Rolex and Flash companies. Of these, 8.27 lakh meters of Flash and Rolex companies have become faulty and have been replaced,” he added.
“From 2018 onwards, we started receiving large number of complaints from consumers that these meters were either slow or fast. We checked these meters and found that the complaints were genuine. As a result, we decided to replace them. We have blacklisted Flash and Rolex,” he further said.
The official said that if central government went in for replacement of all existing meters by smart ones, all the discoms may face a similar problem. “There are limited suppliers of smart meters in the country and quality of many of them is not up to the mark. This is the reason why we have not been able to find smart meter suppliers since the last two years. The government should first encourage manufacture of smart meters in the country and then think about replacement,” he added.
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