CANSAULIM: Chief Minister Laxmikant Parsekar, on Thursday, said that the government has decided to replace the existing power meters in the state with smart meters at the earliest.
The decision was announced after the power ministers of all the states and Union territories deliberated on introducing smart meters in a phased manner. Many states expressed willingness to fully replace the existing power meters with smarts meters. Parsekar said that Goa will have 100 per cent smart meters at the earliest.
He also said that the government will give impetus to the Ujala Scheme in the state, pledging that the government will not only supply three LED bulbs to all the five lakh households but will also write to all government offices and educational institutions to switch over to LED lights.
Union Minister of State for Power Piyush Goyal said that during the conference it was proposed that meters of all power consumers, utilising 500 Watts power a month, would be replaced with smart meters, while subsequently meters of those customers, utilising 200 Watts power, will be replaced in the second phase.
He said that efforts are on to bring down the cost of smart meters which used to cost Rs 8,000 but has been brought down to Rs 3,223, a reduction of 60 per cent, adding that the government is committed to bring down the price to below Rs 1000 in the next 24 months.
He said that the smart meters will put an end to power theft and also ensure that the customer will get an accurate bill, adding that the government intends to bring down loss of power which is around 25 per cent to just about 15 per cent which will save the country around Rs 40,000 crore.
He said many states have come forward expressing willing to have 100 per cent smart meters, which is a big boost to the government in making the power sector vibrant.
Earlier, the state government and the Union government signed a memorandum of understanding under the (UDAY) Ujwal Discom Assurance Yojna for operational and financial turnaround in the state power department.
Similarly, an MoU was also signed by the government of Karnataka covering 12 states with a combined DISCOM debt of around Rs 2.05 lakh crore.
The MoU paves the way for improving operational efficiency of the power distribution in states, through compulsory transformer metering, consumer indexing and GIS mapping of losses, upgrading/changing transformers etc.