Very few faulty meters in Delhi, says Govt

The Government on Friday said only a minuscule percentage of electricity meters of private power distribution companies in the national capital were found working beyond the permissible accuracy limit.

The Government on Friday said only a minuscule percentage of electricity meters of private power distribution companies in the national capital were found working beyond the permissible accuracy limit.

HT Image

Replying to questions in Lok Sabha, Minister of State for Power Jairam Ramesh said Delhi government’s Public Grievances Cell had launched a meter-testing drive through Central Power Research Institute, a government of India body, in May 2007 and “so far they have tested 1475 electronic meters brought by consumers on the presumption” that these are running fast.

“Out of these, only 72 meters were found working beyond the permissible accuracy limit of +_ 2.5 per cent. Thus the percentage of meters found faulty is around five per cent,” Ramesh said.

Elaborating further, he said there are around 30 lakh consumers in Delhi and only around 1500 felt that their meter is running fast and in that group too, just five per cent meters were working beyond permissible accuracy limit.

“Therefore, the number of meters running beyond permissible accuracy limit can be taken to be within 0.01 per cent,” the Minister said.

Dismissing suggestions that the consumers were suffering huge losses due to fast-running meters, he said if such a problem occurs, the licensee replaces the meter within 15 days of testing and refunds the excess amount.