Assam and Bihar are leading states in smart meter installations under the Revamped Distribution Sector Scheme (RDSS), with a total of 7.54 million smart meters installed across India.
This includes 7.30 million consumer meters, 0.18 million distribution transformer (DT) meters and 0.06 million feeder meters.
The total number of smart meters sanctioned under RDSS stands at approximately 2.03 billion, indicating that only 3.7% of the meters have been installed so far.
Assam has installed 2.29 million consumer meters, while Bihar has installed 1.94 million. Together, these two states account for 72% of the consumer meters installed in the country. Notably, 80% of Assam’s consumer meters are installed in rural areas, while Bihar and Madhya Pradesh have predominantly urban installations. Nationwide, around 33% of installed consumer smart meters are in rural areas.
Tamil Nadu has the highest number of smart meters sanctioned, but no physical installations have taken place yet. However, the state is expected to award its first package of 8 million smart meters soon, with Adani Energy Solutions Ltd being the L1 bidder.
In terms of DT meters, 0.18 million have been installed out of the sanctioned 0.52 million. Maharashtra, Assam, and Gujarat lead in DT meter installations. For feeder meters, Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh account for nearly three-fourths of the total installations in India.
The RDSS has an outlay of Rs. 2.77 trillion, with Rs. 1.31 trillion earmarked for smart metering. The gross budgetary support for smart metering is Rs. 24.173 billion.
Most of the RDSS smart metering work is being carried out under the TOTEX model, where AMISP finances the project.
Additionally, smart meter installations are also taking place through central government schemes and state government initiatives outside RDSS, although the majority of installations are under the RDSS framework.