KOHIMA — Nagaland is facing challenges in meeting the 2025 deadline set by the Ministry of Power for the installation of prepaid and smart meters across the state.
While the Ministry of Power had directed that all categories of consumers in the state should be equipped with prepaid/smart meters by 2025, a Power department official expressed concerns about meeting the deadline, citing government sanctions and meter availability.
"Installation of the prepaid and smart meter will depend on the government's sanctions as well as on the availability of meters. While the availability of meters is also a matter of concern, even if meters are made available, I don’t think 2025 is possible. The time extension will be required," the official told Eastern Mirror.
The concern raised by the official may be justified based on the department's annual administrative report for 2022-23, which revealed that Nagaland's total power consumers stood at 3,17,210, out of which 1,79,217 were domestic consumers.
As per the report, other categories of consumers include 1,10,831 SPM connections (street lighting, public places, and municipal services), 16,005 commercial consumers, 4,254 Industrial (LT), 2,485 government departments, 2, 346 others (KJS, PWW), 2064 bulk (HT), and eight agriculture consumers.
Based on this data, the pace of installations in the state appears dismal, as the department has installed only 20,025 prepaid/ smart meters, primarily in Dimapur and Kohima, since the initiative was launched in 2020.
This includes 13,958 smart and prepaid meter installations for domestic use, 466 for industrial purposes (LT), 159 for government departments and 5,442 for commercial use, with the total at 20,025 so far.
The idea of pre-paid and smart meter installation throughout the country was to address the AT&C (aggregate technical and commercial) losses, and wrong billings and to provide hassle-free payments.
Additionally, the Electricity Act of 2003 mandates the installation of smart prepayment meters for all categories of consumers, stating, among other things, "All government offices at Block Level and above, as well as all industrial and commercial consumers, shall be metered with smart meters with prepayment mode by December 2023" and "All other areas shall be metered with smart meters with prepayment mode by March 2025."
At the state level, in 2022, the Power Department notified consumers that smart prepayment meters for all categories of consumers would be mandatorily installed in a time-bound and phased manner.
Notably, Nagaland, which relies on external sources for 90% of its power, reported a significant financial loss in the power sector, spending INR 459.47 crore to purchase power while generating revenue of only INR 217.12 crore in the fiscal year 2021-22, as per the department report.
This indicates a loss of over INR 240 crore.
As per the report, while there are upcoming hydro projects to address low power generation, they currently have limited capacity, with the Likimro hydropower project being the most significant at 24MW. However, the report predicted a rise in the state's power requirement to 686 MW by 2030.
From 2022 to 2023, the state's restricted peak and off-peak demand were 180MW and 141MW, respectively, it said.
Meanwhile, another power department official stated that the first step to addressing losses in the power sector is to replace the post-paid and conventional meters with prepaid and smart meters, which the department is carrying out every day.
He went on to add that the demand for standalone prepaid metering is increasing every day.
People are slowly coming to know the advantages of pre-paid meters. It is more convenient, cheaper, and has no hassles in billing, he maintained.
Standalone pre-paid are installed for those who applied for it but for smart meters, the department is replacing the existing post-paid meter free of cost. However, for new service connections, one has to apply.
In Kohima municipal areas, 9500 consumers out of about 35,000 have installed pre-paid meters while about 400 consumers were covered with smart meters, it was informed.
The failure to meet the deadline may not be limited to Nagaland alone, as the Investment Information and Credit Rating Agency (ICRA) recently expressed concern about the slow pace of installation.
Stating that only 8.0 million smart meters have been installed across the country as of December 2023, the ICRA noted, “Given the current pace of installations, the GoI’s target to replace 250 million conventional meters with smart meters by 2025 is unlikely to be met.”