Probe ordered after lakhs of smart meters stop functioning

LUCKNOW: In what is being suspected to be a mischief or an act of sabotage, over 10 lakh state-ofthe-art smart meters installed in many cities, including Lucknow, stopped function suddenly on Wednesday evening causing power supply disruption to users.

Taking a serious view of the matter, energy minister, Shrikant Sharma ordered an inquiry asking the UP Power Corporation Ltd (UPPCL) top officials to find out the cause and take immediate steps to restore supply of affected consumers.

“Prima facie, it appears to be a mischief or a sabotage by someone working in the unified command centre situated in Lucknow or it can be a technical glitch also,” Sharma told HT over phone, adding, “We have asked the UPPCL chairman to get the matter investigated to find out the exact reason and act accordingly.” While not ruling out the possibility of a conspiracy to malign the image of the government, Sharma said it was a very serious issue and accountability of department’s official would be fixed. UPPCL sources said complaints about lakhs of smart meters going blank suddenly started coming from various cities like Lucknow, Varanasi, Mathura, Bareilly etc in the evening setting an alarm bell ringing in the Shakti Bhawan.

“The most serious thing is that the smart meters’ ‘auto off’ display also went away snapping power supply of even those consumers who have paid their electricity bills. The smart meters have a feature that automatically snaps power supply to a premise if the bill is not paid by the due date,” pointed out sources.

The UPPCL has installed around 10 lakh smart meters in big cities in the state and is in the process of buying 40 lakh more such meters. The Energy Efficiency Services Ltd (EESL), a government of India enterprise, is procuring smart meters for the UPPCL and also operating the unified command centre for these meters in Lucknow.

In Lucknow estimated over 50,000 houses faced a blackout due to the error, confirmed Madhukar Varma, chief engineer, Lucknow Electricity Supply Administration (LESA).