The move by Kerala late last year to opt out of the Centre's scheme comes at a time when this growing frenzy across states to push the smart metering of electricity connections is almost entirely predicated on the assumption that this technology will solve the problems besetting the country's electricity distribution sector
Kerala's move towards an alternate model for the rollout of smart electricity meters, effectively jettisoning the Centre's Rs 3 lakh crore smart meters project, comes as a spanner in the works for the Union Government scheme thataims to replace 250 million conventional meters with smart meters across all households by March 2025.
The move by Kerala late last year to opt out of the Centre's scheme comes at a time when this growing frenzy across states to push the smart metering of electricity connections is almost entirely predicated on the assumption that this technology will solve the problems besetting the country's electricity distribution sector, which multiple rounds to interventions have failed to resurrect in the past. The logic being that these smart meters enable “bi-directional communication” to acquire user data and replay this information, and also control supply.
