Mounting power dues: Prepaid smart metres soon in govt offices
Kolkata: The state government may soon start installing prepaid smart metres in all government departments following which the authorities in each office will have to make a prepaid recharge to avail electricity.
The state Finance department has recently issued a directive in this regard to check the electricity bills of various government offices from getting mounted. The West Bengal State Electricity Distribution Company Limited (WBSEDCL) was keen on introducing prepaid smart metres so that the government offices pay and avail electricity. State secretariat has consented to the proposal submitted by the WBSEDCL. Once the new system is introduced, the authorities in government offices will have to make a prepaid recharge of smart metres like that of a prepaid mobile phone recharge.
The electricity connection will automatically stop when the prepaid amount
on the smart metre is exhausted.
Sources said that WBSEDCL has dues of around Rs 1,000 crore from various government departments. State government will provide money in advance to its offices for monthly recharge of the smart metre but the amount can never be utilised for clearing accumulated electricity dues. A senior official of the WBSEDCL said there has been huge electricity dues from several government offices as the electricity connections cannot be snapped to these offices.
As a result the bill amount keeps mounting, the official added. Not only in the government offices, the WBSEDCL wants to introduce the smart metre in commercial organisations, industries and also in the municipalities and Panchayat officers in a phased manner. In the first phase, there are plans to install 2.5 lakh smart metres replacing the electronic ones. The WBSEDCL has set a target of installing 50 lakh smart metres within 2025. It has already started the process of procuring smart
metres, sources said.
The Union ministry of power in 2021 had issued an advisory to all the Central government ministries to direct organisations under their administrative control to switch over to prepaid energy metres on priority. As it was pointed out by the Centre that prepaid smart metering in all government departments would not only go a long way in ensuring the commitment of the government in bringing discoms back on the path of financial sustainability, promotion of energy efficiency but would also serve as a model for emulation by states for defining similar such mechanisms that support prepayment of the electricity dues by their own departments. But the project was not implemented in Bengal.
