No fiat on smart meters to farm pumpsets: ERC

Hyderabad: As a first step towards implementing power sector reforms recommended by the Centre, the Telangana State Electricity Regulatory Commission (TSERC) has instructed the state power utilities to fasten the process of installing smart meters to the transformers which supplies power to the agricultural pumpsets in the state.

Commission Chairman T Sriranga Rao said that the ERC has already made important suggestions to improve the efficiency of the power utilities to address the technical difficulties and also overcome financial constraints in future. He denied that the commission instructed the installation of smart meters to the agricultural pumpsets as recommended in the power sector reforms.

There is no such order or suggestion from the commission to go for metering of all pumpsets in the state.

However, the smart meters system would be adopted in a phased manner in the domestic consumer section ensuring to earn more revenue from power consumption.

The Energy officials said that installation of smart meters to the transformers would help to ascertain the consumption of power for farming purposes in every village. The state government was supplying 24-hour free power to nearly 30-lakh agricultural pumpsets.

Officials said that excess consumption of power in the farm sector has been reported from certain parts in recent times. The installation of smart meters will help to reduce power consumption, they said.