By Rohit Vaid

New Delhi, Jul 27 (IANS): The Covid-19 pandemic has accelerated the adoption of 'smart meters' in the country, power PSUs' joint venture EESL said.

The 'Super-Energy Service Company' which was setup as a JV between power PSUs including NTPC, PFC, REC and PowerGrid amongst others, is a leading player in the 'Smart Meters' category.

A smart-meter digitally records and wirelessly shares stats like household electricity consumption and voltage levels to the distribution companies.

The smart-meter category is one of the fastest growing segments of the company, with various states now showing keen interest to roll-out massive installation drives in their jurisdictions.

Accordingly, the company has set a target to install three million smart meters in FY21.

"Recently Rajasthan has joined in to install smart-meters. We are also in discussions with Tamil Nadu and West Bengal on smart meters," EESL's Managing Director Saurabh Kumar told IANS.

"We are hoping to install 3 million smart meters in FY21."

According to Kumar, the benefit of installing the meter came to light during the lockdown period, as billing and collection activities of the Discoms were severely impacted due to movement restrictions.

"A contactless delivery system is the best suited in the current scenario, and these features can only be delivered via smart-meter," he said.

EESL's Smart Meter National Programme (SMNP) is working to eventually replace 25 crore conventional meters with smart meters across India.

This is expected to improve the billing efficiencies of Discoms and reduce their cost incurred on manual meter reading through a web-based monitoring system.

At present, EESL has installed more than 10 lakh smart meters.