The government plans to procure 10 million pre-paid meters to be deployed in Uttar Pradesh as part of the Saubhagya scheme, which aims to add more than 40 million households to the power grid by December next year.
Leading national and international companies, including L&T, HPL, Landis and Gyr, Secure Meters, China-based Shenzhen Inhemeter, and Genus Power, have expressed their interest in the global competitive-bidding tender for the pre-paid meters.
According to Economic Times, Energy Efficiency Services Limited (EESL) managing director Saurabh Kumar told “We have issued a letter of interest for procurement of these pre-paid meters and about 15 companies have submitted their pre-qualification documents, which we are currently scrutinising. We will float the tender next week,”.
Power Minister R.K Singh had said at a press conference last week that the government would push pre-paid meters so that even the poorest consumers could be connected to the electricity network.
“Just like you recharge your mobile, you will be able to recharge electricity. This will make it viable for the poor. With this pre-paid facility, the consumer will not get disconnected,” Singh had said.
The Saubhagya scheme, launched by the Prime Minister in September, has an outlay of Rs. 16,320 crores, with a budgetary allocation of Rs 12,320 crores.
“The meters will be stand-alone prepaid meters, as desired by the Uttar Pradesh authorities,” Kumar added.
The expression of interest (EoI) document issued by EESL for the tender, and accessed by ET, also states that overseas suppliers may be required to manufacture a part of their order in India.
“Naturally, we would like the manufacturing to happen locally. We are expecting 75% of the order to be sourced in India,” Kumar said.
“These matters are still under discussion, and once we issue the formal request for proposal (RfP), we will be able to clarify on issues like local manufacturing, as this is a very time specific order and international players may not want to set up shop for such a short time-period in India,” another official aware of the developments said.
The pre-paid meters, which will allow consumers to pay beforehand for their electricity usage, are most likely to be supplied between February and December next year.
