Tender for 10 mn prepaid meters attracts 12 bidders, large players keep out

The first and the largest tender for procuring 10 million prepaid meters, saw 12 bidders submitting interest for participating in the reverse bidding.

However, the leading three large players in the industry – Landis Gyr India, Secure Meters and HPL India have not joined the race, citing regulatory and security concerns.

Among the ones who have submitted technical bids are ITI, which won the last smart meter tender by EESL, L&T, whose bid was cancelled in the last smart meters tender, Genus Power and JnJ Powercom, both of whom were sub-tendered the smart meter by ITI. Among other bidders are JNG Power, Allied Meter, Sumuruverda, Zen Meter, 9. United Electrical, KEONICS, Vexing Electricals Corparatio, ECIL and Bentec.

The companies that have kept out have expressed concerns over the tariff structure of a prepaid meter. “A prepaid meter functions on a singular tariff, whereas states like UP have more than a dozen tariff slabs. The technical specification of a prepaid meter doesn’t support it. It is highly unexpected that the state would change the tariff structure because an average tariff would be high for a large section of domestic consumers,” said a senior sector executive.

Some other executives also have cited security issues. The model on which the prepaid meter is based and forms the basis for the tender issued by power ministry, has a security key. This key, the sector executives said would be shared with the developer of the technology based in South Africa, which in turn will have access to all the meters installed in India.

“It is a major security concern that the security key is available to another country.

This point has been overlooked by the authorities. There are alternate technologies available but that were not considered,” alleged an executive.
ITI which won the tender for Smart Meter later sub-tendered the contract to four private companies. Indian electrical industry in their latest representation to the power ministry said that none of the sub-contractors have necessary specifications or standard certificate from the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS).

Out of these four, one contractor is JnJ Powercom Systems which is alleged to have defaulted in its supply of meters in Tripura and is likely to be blacklisted, said officials. Other is Keonics which has already been blacklisted in Karnataka for technical faults. The other two are Genus Power which is a fairly large player and a start-up company Zen Meter.

The same companies are now participating in the bidding for prepaid meters.

Power ministry officials said due proceedings are being followed in the tender and the companies which match the technical specifications would be allowed in the financial bidding.

Meter industry is also skeptical on the amount of meters in a single tender. “Typically it's take a year to install maximum 5-10 lakh meters. Here UP alone has an order of 10 million prepaid meters and 50 lakh smart meters. First servicing of a smart meter is due in 3 years from the day of packaging. How will they install so many meters especially when there are so many replacements also to be done,” said an executive.

Senior power ministry official said the meter tender has been floated as per the demand shared by the respective states.