Smart Electricity Meter Rollout Is Mandatory Under RDSS, Maharashtra Minister Meghana Bordikar Dismisses Public Bill Fears

Maharashtra Minister of State for Energy Meghana Bordikar strongly defended the state's ongoing smart electricity meter rollout during a legislative assembly session on Friday, firmly stating that the transition is a legally binding directive. Responding to mounting public anxiety and opposition pushback regarding inflated utility bills, the minister dismissed ongoing public complaints as a product of widespread misinformation.

The state government clarified that the modern tracking units are being deployed strictly in compliance with guidelines issued under the Central Government’s Revamped Distribution Sector Scheme (RDSS). Legislative discussions heated up following a calling attention motion raised by MLA Bhimrao Tapkir and assertions by rural lawmakers, including Nilesh Rane, who alleged that local electricity officials were installing the devices without clear consumer consent. Maharashtra Revises Power Tariff: Mahavitaran Consumers To Get Relief From April 1 As Power Tariff Reduced by 10%.

Addressing allegations that the new devices artificially inflate billing charges, Bordikar termed the claims a "pure misconception" and stated that the technical mechanisms for calculating power units remain fundamentally unchanged from older electronic models. The primary shift involves removing manual intervention to prevent recurring human errors during meter readings.

The rollout has triggered sustained friction across both urban centers and rural belts over the last few weeks. Consumer unions and political leaders from the opposition NCP (Sharadchandra Pawar) and Shiv Sena (UBT) have heavily scrutinized the drive, pointing to sudden notices given to consumers to replace conventional units. Critics also voiced fears that the project would lay a framework for the forced introduction of prepaid power plans and eventual distribution privatization. Why Mumbai Faced Widespread Power Outages This Summer.

Despite consumer pushback and an escalating political debate, Maharashtra has crossed 1.5 crore smart power meter installations. Distribution utilities like the state-run MSEDCL, Mumbai’s BEST undertaking, and private firms like Adani Electricity and Tata Power continue to scale up deployment, pitching real-time digital monitoring as a critical step to curb transmission losses and improve fault detection across the power grid.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Jul 03, 2026 07:05 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).