Vijayawada: Energy minister Gottipati Ravi Kumar has ordered a field-level inquiry into the performance of smart meters following complaints that electricity bills increased after their installation in industrial and commercial establishments.Responding to concerns raised by power consumers, the minister instructed officials to conduct a thorough investigation into the meters’ functioning and to verify whether the billing hike was genuine or resulted from technical or procedural issues, and submit a detailed report. Ravi Kumar said the govt received feedback that electricity bills were rising after the installation of smart meters. “I have instructed officials to identify the reasons behind this. The functioning of smart meters is being closely examined, and I want to assure everyone that no consumer will be burdened even by a single rupee unnecessarily,” he said. Sources said that the discoms were yet to submit the report to the minister as they have decided to put the newly procured meters on testing mode to ascertain the technical glitches. TDP, which strongly opposed the installation of smart meters while in opposition, seems to have quietly adapted to the YSRCP regime’s decision. The govt has asked the discoms to proceed with the installation of smart meters in two phases. In the first phase, industrial units and commercial establishments will have their old RF meters replaced with smart meters, while household points will be covered in the second phase. Consumers would be burdened as they will have to bear the cost of the smart meters and their maintenance costs. Although the discoms will collect the costs in instalments, the cost of each smart meter is expected to be around Rs 8,000 for single-phase meters and Rs 17,000 for three-phase users. The smart meters’ price in the open market ranges between Rs 3,000 and Rs 3,500.
