Smart meters up and running, consumers give mixed response

The power department has installed 41,384 smart electricity meters across the city so far, under its Smart Grid project, and plans to replace all the existing meters with smart ones by June. However, consumers gave a mixed response to the smart meter experience, with some claiming they are yet to receive the bills while a few have had to deal with inflated bills.

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Officials of the power department said that the new system is under observation and they are rectifying problems that are arising.

Dakshin Haryana Bijli Vitran Nigam (DHBVN) officials said that they aim to do away with the perennial complaints of meter tampering, inflated electricity bills, etc, with the new system.

The chairman of the Haryana Electricity Regulatory Commission (HERC), DS Dhesi, a former chief secretary of the Haryana government, reviewed the smart metering installation work on Friday in Gurugram. He also reviewed the progress of smart meters being installed in Gurugram.

The discom, over the past two and half months, has installed smart meters in DLF 1, 2 and 3, and Palam Vihar. By March, the department aims to replace meters of all consumers in all of DLF 1 to 5.

So far, the department has generated bills of only 300 consumers under smart meters, with many still have not having received the bills. However, some of them who received bills said their charges have been inflated.

Shikha Sharma, a DLF-2 resident, said, “The DHBVN sent us an inflated bill of ₹30,000 for units that we did not consume. The bills for previous two months — November and December of 2019 — got us worried and we had to pay three visits to the DHBVN office, after which they reduced it to ₹20,000, which was still was beyond our comprehension. The average bill for two months in our household is ₹10,000-₹12,000. However, this has happened in smart meters, installed roughly two and a half months ago, despite being told that this system will have no error.”

A DHBVN official said that the system is under observation. “We have received few such complaints and are addressing them, as successfully installing a new system takes time. The smart metres are aimed at doing away with such errors that usually happened in the manual meter reading system. In smart metres, there is a chip connected through the Hisar-based control system and bills are generated from there only,” the official said.

In smart meters, the billing cycle is bimonthly, same as that of the old system. “Smart meters were installed a month ago in Palam Vihar, but bills have not been generated yet. We are waiting for the bills to be issued. Only then will we be able to say if the new metering system is perfect,” said Sunil Yadav, a resident of Palam Vihar.

There are a total of 273,055 electricity consumers registered with the DHBVN, and all of these meters will be replaced by June 2020, said officials.

Vinita Singh, chief engineer, Smart Grid project, DHBVN, said, “We have to install or replace 100,000 smart meters by March 2020. All the new smart meters are working fine.”

Dhesi said that a mobile app is being prepared by the department for consumers to do a comparative analysis of power consumption. “Through these smart meters, electricity consumers will also be able to avail of the prepaid facility. Not only this, but the smart meters will also prove to be effective in reducing line loss, which will also be done through online monitoring by the department,” said Dhesi.