Faced with dwindling revenue income that has caused huge deficits, Department of Power (DoP) is mulling a plan to introduce pre-paid power meter.
According to DoP officials, a colony could be selected in Dimapur on trial basis and would be gradually introduced to other parts of Dimapur City.
The meter comes with a unit called CIU or consumer interface unit. Consumers have to pay in advance for consuming power with prepaid meters.
The amount will be deducted according to the amount of power consumed. The customer will receive a message when it is time to recharge.
It keeps the consumers updated with the balance, hourly consumption and units used at any time of the day and most importantly, helps save power.
The advantages for consumers are there will be no disconnection or reconnection and no standing in long queues to pay bills. It will display remaining credit and there will be no incorrect bill, account queries or meter reading.
It will make people energy conscious. Prepaid meters prevent wastage of power in transmission and cut distribution losses. Normally, to carry out maintenance work at a substation, all feeders have to be switched off.
According to a report, These meters can also detect unauthorized use of power in the system. About 24% power is wasted through distribution losses.
Transmission and commercial losses (power theft) come to 4% and 5% respectively The department monitors usages of consumers having pre-paid meters, In case some consumer gets only Rs.500 recharge but uses power for two to three months, it will be noted and consequent action taken against the defaulter.
Also paying bills will no longer be a problem and one can just pay the bill with the click of the mouse. The pre-paid meter can also be recharged at the website using debit or credit cards from home by entering the unique consumer number.
For people who have bad memory and forget to recharge the prepaid meter, the CIU unit will raise an alarm thrice when the balance drops to 100. But in case you miss the alarm, your electricity won’t be disconnected at night or on holidays.