Ranchi: Smart meters installed in Ranchi city will start being pre-paid from October 2.
JBVNL has made preparations for this.
At present, only smart meters being installed under new connections are pre-paid, whose number is 2500.
So far around 1.15 lakh smart meters have been installed in the city. Out of which reading has started from all except 10 thousand.
Actually, it was getting delayed due to a software problem.
Presently the billing work was being done with the software of HCL Company.
But JBVNL has given its responsibility to Fluent Grid. The company has prepared the software.
Soon its network and server will start working.
After this, the facility of pre-paying smart meters and billing will be available in other parts of the state.
Presently, due to software problems, there is a problem in billing.
There is a lot of problems like no one’s regular billing and reading.
To get rid of this, JBVNL has given the responsibility to Fluent Grid to prepare a new software.
Now the billing work will be done in the entire state under the software of this company.
With the help of the World Bank, the old meters of 3.50 lakh consumers in the urban area of Ranchi are being replaced by pre-paid smart meters.
Which is being installed completely free of cost to the consumers.
The old meters that are being opened will be installed in rural areas where the consumers are unmetered.
The whole scheme is worth 330 crores.
The total cost of installing one meter is Rs.6800.