CHENNAI: The tender process for identifying the Advanced Metering Infrastructure Service Provider (AMISP) for the ambitious rollout of over three crore smart meters for power consumers, which already faced significant delays during the bid submission process, is once again moving at a snail’s pace.
The bid submission ended in the first week of August with around 50 firms joining the race. The bids were later opened, but officials of the Tamil Nadu Power Distribution Corporation Limited (TNPDCL) said that the process of technical evaluation of the bids is yet to be completed, and the L1 bidder has not been identified yet.
It can be recalled that the bid submission deadline for the tender, which was floated in six packages in March this year, was initially set as April 16. It was later extended over five times before finally being closed on August 5.
A senior official in TNPDCL said that, after studying the technical and financial details of the bids, a detailed report was sent to energy and finance departments for approval. The official said the approval required from the government, as per norm for high-value projects, has not been obtained yet. A few senior officials said the project, which was already delayed, may miss the deadline of March 2028 set by the union government for completing the project under the Revamped Distribution Sector Scheme (RDSS).
It is noteworthy that the present state government had also said that the rollout of smart meters must be completed, before it could take up measures to fulfil its poll promise of changing the existing bi-monthly billing cycle for consumers to monthly — a move that can bring down the consumption charges for the public.
Another senior official said the draft order on revised workload norms, recently released by the TNPDCL for its Group 3 and Group 4 staff, suggested revisiting the norms after 100% implementation of mobile applications and prepaid smart meters.
“Looking at the progress, the full rollout cannot be completed in the next three years and we have to continue to rely on the existing static meters for measuring power consumption,” he said. Nearly 8,000 assessor posts are lying vacant, making revenue collection difficult.
Speaking to TNIE, Vishnu Mahajan, Joint Managing Director (Finance) of TNPDCL, said the next step will be decided only in the upcoming board meeting. Noting that a date for the board meeting was yet to be finalised, he said that TNPDCL has not fixed any timeline to hand over the project to the successful bidders. Electricity Minister SS Sivasankar was not available for a comment when TNIE tried contacting him on Sunday.