PATNA: With the state meeting the records of all time high demand of 6627 MW power recently, the government has started replacing old eletric meters with Smart Prepaid meters.
As on June 1st, the state electricity department has installed a record number of 1,47,582 Smart Prepaid Meters as one June 1. CMD –cum-secretary of Bihar State Power Holding Companies, Sanjeev Hans said that a target has been fixed to install 23,50,000 Smart Prepaid Meters across the state. “Of the fixed target, 1, 47,583 mart Prepaid Meters have been installed and the remaining 22, 02,418 meters will be installed by December 2022 ,” he said.
He said that since the state has achieved 100% electrification, the concerned department has taken up this task to replace all meters by the Smart Prepaid Meters on a war-footing in order to make the consumers sufficient to check and balance the consumption of power in their households or any establishments.
Besides this, the department is also working to provide power connections to 2.7 lakh farmers for agriculture purposes.
Hans further added that 76000 smart prepaid meters have already been installed in Patna out of 5.2 lakhs households in Patna to be covered till July 2022. “With the of installation Smart Prepaid Meters, problems like inflated bills and other billing problems would be sorted out." He said that CM Nitish Kumar has already assured that no fund crunch for installation of prepaid meters would be faced by the department.
Government-owned Energy Efficiency Services Limited (EESL) has signed an agreement with Bihar state power department for installation of smart prepaid meters.