Kerala's own smart electricity meter 'to ease burden on consumer'

A high-level meeting chaired by chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan has decided to implement the state’s own smart electricity meter scheme.

The move is aimed to ease the financially burden on the common man by not adopting the total expenditure (TOTEX) model recommended by the Central government.

However, this will not be made mandatory for all consumers. In the first phase, smart meters will need to be installed on the premises of only industrial and commercial consumers.

The number of such consumers in the state is below 3 lakh. If the project is implemented on the lines of the scheme recommended by the central government, 37 lakh meters would have to be installed.

Although Electricity Minister K. Krishnankutty had written a letter to the Centre seeking its approval for the state’s project, there has been no reply even after a month. If the state implements its own plan, the central grant of Rs 9,000 crore for the project will not be made available.

The TOTEX scheme recommended by the Centre is one wherein private companies install and maintain the meters at their expense and recover the amount from the consumers in installments over 93 months. Employees’ organisations of the Kerala State Electricity Board (KSEB) had opposed entrusting the work of installing and maintaining the smart meters to external agencies.

Under the scheme envisaged by the state, a consortium of public sector establishments will manufacture the smart meters. The KSEB will develop the software for billing and related services. The board will also be able to collect data by using the fibre optic cable that will be made available to it under the Kerala Fibre Optic Network (KFON) project. The board can also store the data at its existing data centre. The task of replacing the old meters with smart meters will be carried out by employees of the board.

Ministers K Krishnankutty, K N Balagopal; Additional Chief Secretary to the Power department, K R Jyothilal; chairman of the Kerala State Electricity Board, Rajan Khobragade; Principal Secretary to the Finance Department, Rabindra Kumar Agarwal; and others took part in the meeting that was presided over by the Chief Minister.

No load shedding for now
There will be no load shedding and power cuts in the state for the time being. Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan directed at the high-level meeting that electricity should be bought through short-term and mid-term contracts from outside the state.

The Kerala State Electricity Board has floated tenders for signing midterm contracts for buying 500 MW of electricity. It will be known if sufficient amounts of electricity will be available at reasonable rates only when the tenders are opened on September 4.

The power companies with which the KSEB had entered into long-term contracts for buying 465 MW are reluctant to supply power after the contracts expire, although the Kerala Electricity Regulatory Commission has given its approval for continuing with the purchase of power from these companies. In this situation, the board is buying electricity from the power exchange at higher rates in order to bridge the energy deficit.

Even if power is available from outside the state, the issue of concern is the price that will have to be paid. The financial burden caused by this could prove to be a headache for the board. Owing to the shortfall in rain, the state is experiencing a power deficit of 500 MW.

The Chief Minister has directed the Chief Secretary to hold consultations with Secretaries to various departments in order to find out whether government and public sector establishments will be able to pay to the KSEB before December next year the electricity arrears that they have run up.