On Monday, September 4th, the administration of Srinagar announced that at least 26,000 residents of the Valley have made the transition to prepaid electricity in the midst of the rollout of smart metres across the region.
Those whose smart metres were installed in phase I may now begin the process of switching to prepaid mode. According to Chief Engineer Javaid Yousf Dar of Kashmir Power Distribution Corporation Limited (KPDCL), smart metres have been installed in over 26,000 homes as of this writing. Dar made this announcement to the Kashmir News Observer.
Every customer would eventually be required to put their smart metres into prepaid mode, he added, adding that the transition is happening gradually.
When asked about switching the smart metres placed in the second phase to prepaid mode, the KPDCL Chief Engineer responded that integration is currently underway and that the smart metres would be converted to prepaid mode after the integration process is complete. Hopefully, he continued, “it can begin as early as next month.”
In July of this year, the Kashmir Power Development Corporation Limited (KPDCL) issued a directive requiring more than 57,000 customers with smart energy metres to make the changeover from postpaid to prepaid service. If they didn’t, we’d have to disconnect them.
The KPDCL Chief Engineer said that smart metre installation is now underway and would take another year or two to finish.
The KPDCL Chief Engineer assured KNO that the cabling work was being done concurrently with the installation of smart metres. “The new cabling work has been done in many areas, not only in Srinagar but in towns too, and furthermore, the process is still going on,” he said (KNO).
