CHENNAI: Tamil Nadu Generation and Distribution Corporation (TANGEDCO) is likely to launch a mobile app in January 2022 to make meter reading easier. According to sources, consumers will be able to receive their bills as SMS within minutes of uploading photos of their meters onto the app. This will make assessment quicker and eliminate human error.
The move is seen as part of the digitisation push by the Public Sector Undertaking (PSU), which already has online payment methods to reduce crowding at its direct collection centres. A senior TANGEDCO official said: “During Covid-19 outbreak last year, we couldn’t manually read meters.
So users were told to pay the previous month’s bill or to send photos of their meters for billing purposes. Over 10 lakh consumers had thus sent photos of their meters and got their electricity bills.” This experience inspired TANGEDCO to plan an app for meter reading. In the initial phase, only TANGEDCO staff will be able to use the app, but consumers will be able to download it in future, the official added.