240 mn smart prepaid meters, Indian metering industry’s delivery potentiality

The 8th Edition of Metering India, an International seminar organised by IEEMA Meter Division was held on August 8-9, 2019 at Hotel Le Meridien, New Delhi. The two-day conference received an overwhelming response with the presence of more than 530 delegates. The theme of the conference was “Widening Horizons”.

The conference highlighted key challenges and knowledge sharing on various aspects of metering including communication systems, emerging technologies, design and testing, and data acquisition and management. The conference also showcased the best practices in metering space.

Harish Agarwal, President, IEEMA was of the view that a new range of ‘smart meters’ can bring efficiency to how India manages its electricity, by checking data-entry errors and billing efficiencies and cutting the costs of manual meter reading through web-based monitoring system.

Ashish Tandon, Chairman, IEEMA Meter Division said, “The Indian Metering Industry is fully capable of delivering 240 million smart prepaid meters. We have all the desired capacity and capabilities to design, develop, manufacture and ship these meters from state of art manufacturing units within India, which is fully aligned with our Honourable Prime minister’s vision of “Make In India”. However, we require support from the utilities and the ministry to fulfil this vision; firstly a realistic time frame to be laid down so that the goal can be achieved practically. Secondly, consolidation of technologies is required and thirdly realistic price expectations; if we get the right volumes, we will surely achieve the right price and lastly we have to move from buyer seller L1 mode to partnership mode.”