Punjab farmers up in arms against smart meters

Parvesh Sharma

Sangrur, February 26

Officers of Punjab State Power Corporation Limited (PSPCL) are finding it tough to convince area farmers to install smart electricity meters. At many places, the farmers have removed the meters and threatened to launch an agitation.

Bid to extract money

We have got information that the PSPCL is installing smart meters. These can be converted into pre-paid meters and same will be done across Punjab to extract money from farmers. Rajpal Singh, BKU (Ekta Azad)

“Three days back when PSPCL officers came to install smart meters in our area , we did not allow them. We also removed one smart meter installed by them and deposited that into the grid. We will not allow the installation of any smart meter,” said Rinku Moonak, a leader of the BKU (Ugrahan).

Some other farmers from the area alleged that initially the government would install smart meters, but after sometime, these would be converted into pre-paid meters and they would be compelled to pay money in advance.

They also alleged that the PSPCL officers were threatening poor families of disconnecting power supply and trying to forcibly install smart meters.“We have got information that the government has plans to replace all these with pre-paid meters and it’s the reason that now PSPCL officers are installing smart meters. These can be converted into pre-paid meters and same will be done across Punjab to extract money from farmers. We will not allow smart meters at our house,” alleged Rajpal Singh, a leader of the BKU Ekta (Azad).

Some PSPCL officers said the smart meters were necessary to contain power theft. Under a special campaign, the authorities of Sangrur circle, which includes five divisions Sangrur, Sunam, Lehra, Dirba and Patran, have detected 3,412 theft cases and imposed a penalty of Rs 4.62 crore.

“We are trying to convince farmers as all new connections will get smart meters. The pre-paid meters will be installed only in government departments,” said RK Mittal, Supertending Engineer of the PSPCL, Sangrur circle.