The Bengal BJP government’s decision to give fresh impetus to installing smart meters for domestic electricity consumers has drawn attention to the Uttar Pradesh drive launched in 2020.
Beginning May, the Yogi Adityanath dispensation has started to discontinue the smart prepaid meter system across the state and convert the already-installed devices to postpaid, following widespread protests over alleged excess billing and irregularities linked to gadgets.
Smart meters are advanced digital devices that record power consumption and automatically communicate the data directly to the utility provider. The traditional, analogue meters need manual, in-person readings.
Till Tuesday, Uttar Pradesh Power Corporation Ltd (UPPCL) had sent bills to 85.60 lakh of the 89.70 lakh domestic consumers whose prepaid meters have been converted to postpaid in the past few weeks, with glitches holding up over 3.6 lakh bills.
A large number of consumers had alleged that the prepaid recharge system had been “imposed on them without their knowledge” and claimed that the corporation disconnected their power supply as soon as the balance got exhausted.
The erstwhile Mamata Banerjee government in Bengal had also faced similar hurdles while implementing the smart meter scheme and had to pause the exercise last year. Many consumers had complained that they were having to pay more and were facing difficulties in getting their connections back once services were snapped when the recharge balance became zero.
To get around this problem, the new Suvendu Adhikari government has decided that the smart power meters to be installed will be postpaid and the billing cycle will remain the same as the existing system.
The Uttar Pradesh government has set a target of installing 3.50 crore smart prepaid meters across the state. Last month, however, the government began switching to the postpaid system from prepaid after protests began in many districts.
Under the new arrangement, consumers will receive power bills after consumption, with bills for electricity used in May 2026 to be issued in June under the postpaid system.
A.K. Sharma, the energy minister, has said all prepaid smart meters will be converted to postpaid by the end of June. Sources in the corporation told this newspaper on Tuesday that the postpaid May bills of around 3.62 lakh consumers couldn’t be generated because of a “technical glitch”.
“These consumers also have smart meters, but we failed to monitor the machines and read bills remotely for technical reasons,” said an officer who didn’t want to be named. “Their May bills will be generated through a handheld automated machine and given to them by June 29. The other consumers who have smart meters have got their bills on their registered mobile phone numbers.”
“There are another 45,000 consumers whose smart meters were installed only a few days before the switch from prepaid to postpaid began. Their bills under the postpaid system will be issued in July and they will remain under the prepaid system till then,” the official said.
However, many consumers are complaining that they are receiving bills under the postpaid system despite having an outstanding balance on their prepaid meters.
“Why have I received a bill of ₹2,500 even though I had a balance of ₹4,000 when the prepaid system was converted to postpaid?” asked Janeshwar Singh, a resident of Varanasi. “Also, me and many other consumers are receiving bloated bills after the smart meters were installed,” he added.
Rakesh Kumar Pandey, the chief engineer of the electricity department in Varanasi, said outstanding balances under the prepaid system would be adjusted against the postpaid bills once the switch was fully implemented.
UPPCL officers in Lucknow said the errors would be corrected by the end of July.
Several neighbourhood protests were held across the state between February and April as consumers struggled with smart meters and their power supply got disrupted whenever they failed to recharge on time. Many consumers complained that it took hours for the supply to be restored even after recharging the meters.
All this despite the power minister repeatedly issuing assurances that electricity wouldn’t be disconnected at night and supply would not be cut to zero-balance meters for 15 days.
“An internal inquiry conducted by the administration revealed that the software used to monitor the prepaid smart meters was not compatible with the rules formulated by the government. The software would automatically sever power supply within a few hours of a consumer’s balance getting exhausted,” said an official of the UP Electricity Regulatory Commission, which imposed a fine of ₹7.18 lakh on UPPCL earlier this month.
Awadhesh Verma, the president of the social organisation Rajya Bijli Upbhokta Parishad, said: “The government imposed prepaid meters on the people without adequate preparations.”
The Bharatiya Kisan Union Awadh, a farmers’ union in central Uttar Pradesh, alleged that the government was trying to enmesh people in a prepaid-postpaid smart-meter matrix so they don’t talk about the “dilapidated power infrastructure”.