The Administrative Council headed by Lt. Governor Manoj Sinha on Wednesday authorized the power distribution corporations of Jammu and Kashmir divisions to install 8 lakh prepaid electric meters to check theft of over 50% electricity.
Under the smart metering project, 6 lakh prepaid meters will be installed across Jammu and Kashmir through RECPDCL, a wholly owned subsidiary of Rural Electrification Corporation under the Ministry of Power. Currently, 2 lakh smart meters are being installed in Jammu and Srinagar under the Prime Minister’s Development Programme (PMDP).
The ‘Revamped Distribution Sector Scheme’ mainly focuses on reforms in the power sector to improve quality and reliability of power supply to consumers through a financially and operationally efficient distribution sector.
Prepaid meters will bring about transparency in metering, billing and collection which will eventually reduce power losses and ensure quality and reliable power supply to consumers. The meters will be read remotely in Data Centre at Srinagar and Data Recovery Centre at Jammu through communication channels, which will also facilitate the distribution corporations to know the status of power supply at consumer end and also take prompt action.
Pertinently, the power distribution sector of the UT of J&K has a total consumer base of nearly 21 lakhs, out of which metered consumers are only about 50%. The poor consumer metering is the main reasons for huge AT&C losses which go 50% in Jammu and Kashmir against the national average of 22%.
ends