The electricity department in Unnao is going to make 41 thousand smart meter consumers prepaid. This change happening without prior notice has created panic among consumers. Now they will have to recharge before using electricity. The department says that this process was already decided and soon consumers will get the facility of advance payment.
The electricity department will make the meters of its nearly six and a half lakh consumers smart. For this, Polaris Pvt. Ltd. has signed a contract with Madhyanchal Vidyut Vitran Nigam. As per the contract, the target is to complete it in one and a half years. But even after almost a year of this process, only the meters of 41 thousand consumers have been made smart.
Although after achieving the target, the department had to make the connections of all domestic consumers prepaid, but the department has decided to make these 41 thousand smart meter holders pre-paid consumers. As soon as the work started, consumers started receiving information through SMS on their phones. This has created panic among them.
Smart meters have been installed at the homes of more than 41 thousand electricity consumers in the district. This has made them hi-tech by making all their services, from electricity bills to other services, online. These consumers are getting the benefit of other facilities along with getting updates on their mobile phones.
Meanwhile, the electricity department has given a big shock to its smart consumers. In which the department has made these consumers pre-paid consumers. That too without any prior notice. In the next few days, these consumers will not receive electricity bills.
That is, they will not get the facility to pay the fee after consuming the electricity. Rather, they will have to pay the fee in advance for using the electricity. Or in other words, they will have to recharge the number.
After that they will be able to consume only that much electricity as they have recharged. For this the electricity department has started the work of feeding smart consumers as prepaid consumers.
Saurabh Nigam, Executive Engineer of Electricity Distribution Section I, said that the process of pre-paying for consumers with smart meters is already fixed and work is going on on that. It will take some time now. After which they will not face any problem. Rather, they will be able to pay the bill in advance for the amount of electricity they consume.
