Chennai: Finance minister N Marie Wilson announced on Wednesday that Chennai region will be covered under the smart meter scheme. So far, 1.29 lakh smart meters have been installed at T Nagar and surrounding areas under the smart city project, which will be extended to 38.8 lakh consumers across the city. “Parts of the neighbouring districts will also be covered based on consumption pattern,” said a TNPDCL official.Existing digital meters will be replaced with smart meters, which will automatically generate power bills at the end of each billing cycle and send alerts to consumers for payments. This will reduce manual intervention as smart meters can disconnect and reconnect power supply in case of default in payments.A pet project of the previous DMK govt, the smart meter scheme has been in discussion for the past few years. Tenders were called for, lodged and revised, but none saw the light of the day.The first smart meter tender was floated in Aug 2023 to cover three crore electricity consumers in the state, before it was discontinued in Dec 2024 due to poor participation of bidders and high maintenance cost quoted.Fresh tenders for smart meters were floated again in March 2025. These tenders were revised last Aug to cover 1.44 crore consumers, whose bi-monthly consumption exceeds 400 units.Electricity and law minister R Nirmalkumar said that after TVK assumed office in May, the state did not take a decision on the smart meter programme. During the budget presentation, however, Wilson said that apart from Chennai region, 50 lakh industrial and commercial consumers will get smart meters.
