Omkar Dattatray
The people of Jammu in general and the stalwarts of Young Rajput Sabha in particular have rightly raised the public issue and concern of the smart metering and attracted the attention of the UT government towards this important issue of Public concern. The Jammuties are not against the installation of smart meters but have reservations ,suspicion and doubt about the over speeding and running of the smart meters as the consumers are receiving the electricity bill at more than double amounts thus naturally are feeling unease and angry about the working of the smart meters .The electricity consumers are in trouble as they have to part with more money for consuming the same amount of electricity .
The YRS and the people as well as the traders and transporters of Jammu have shown unity and have extended total and unflinching support to the Bandh call and made it a success .Thus have the YRS and the people of Jammu being successful at least in attracting the attention of the LG administration towards this burning issue of importance of Public with which people are troubled .The people of Jammu and Kashmir are unlucky and unfortunate that they have been denied of the democratic/people government from the last over five years and there is central rule in the UT .Besides the people of this UT stand orphaned since there is no public representative to listen to the woes and problems of the gullible masses, with the result they face unprecedented issues and problems.
All the administrative secretaries and district collectors are outsiders and they have no connect with the people and the citizens can not call back on these officers and the result is that there is a big gap between the proxy rulers and the ruled and the people are the biggest sufferers. The people of Jammu allege that smart meters and the whole system is defective and even minimal electricity users are getting heavy bills .
Therefore there is need to discard these meters soon so that it may not cause inconvenience and anxiety to the consumers. So far as the smart metering is concerned the government should remove all doubts and fears from the public mind so that people have no reservations over the installation of the smart meters. It is very disturbing that the consumers are given the electricity bills at very inflated rates because of the more speed of these meters and they thus rob the common people of their meager incomes as unimagined bills are a great burden and strain on the income of the people .It is very disturbing and sad that the people of this sensitive UT are deceived and cheated through these smart meters which often show inflated electricity bills and thus make a hole in the coffers of the average consumers .
The consumers are called kings of the modern trade and business but so far as the electricity smart meters are concerned ,they are busy in giving strong shocks to the electricity consumers as they are handed bills at very inflated rates which have no relation with the actual electricity consumed and used by the innocent people .The majority of the people in Jammu and Kashmir are poor and they hardly make their both ends meet and then burdening them more by smart meters as it shows unimagined electric charges which have no relations with the actual power consumed and used by them.
Thus the poor consumers stand robed of their meager incomes because they have but to pay electric tariff as per the reading shown by smart meters which run very fast and as a consequence the consumers have to pay big amounts as electric charges which are not commensurate with the electricity used by the consumers.
As there is no public representative to fall back upon by the people and so they were forced to resort to strike in recent days .The UT government should take cognizance of the woes of the consumers as far as it is related with inflated electricity bills which consumers are provided by the SEDC and these bills are an assault on the incomes of the people and are no less than the Zazia of the yore which used to be levied by the despotic and authoritative foreign rulers.
The more people know about smart meters ,the more likely they are to worry about the impact those meters will have on their privacy .Overall ,consumers are equally split about the effect the smart grid will have on the privacy their energy consumption records .In an assessment and research upon the people in USA ,39% of the respondents believe the smart grid will diminish their privacy .24% of respondents are unsure as to the impact and 37 believe it will not improve their privacy .Of particular note is that as professed knowledge about smart grid increases ,so too does the concern regarding privacy .There is noticeable shift from no impact on privacy to the diminishes privacy category .The ability to accesses ,analyze and respond to highly granular levels of information from all levels of the electric grid is the source of the major benefits provided or expected to be provided by the smart grid .
Vastly more information may be created ,collected and analyzed by the smart meters compared to the data generated dumb meters and gathered by monthly meter readings .This may explain why the more consumers appreciate the centrality of data to the smart grid ,the less they trust smart meters .The utilities and industry groups need to expand efforts to educate consumers about the impact smart meters .For higher efficiency ,higher revenue and good services ,there is no alternative but to install and used smart meters .The consumers should understand and appreciate that they have but to be ready for the smart meters ,but all misunderstandings and misinformation about the smart meters should be removed by the power authorities and power corporations so that consumers will welcome their installation and use.
The apprehensions and doubts about the inflated electricity bills should be looked into and transparency and probity followed to impress the consumers that the smart meters are in the benefit of the consumers. It is satisfying that the Divisional commissioner Jammu and Additional Director General police has said that the government of the UT is seized of the matter and necessary steps are being taken to see that the consumers are not subjected to highly inflated electricity bill by the smart meters .
The consumers have the genuine apprehension and suspicion that the smart meters run very fast and they show the readings which have no correlation with the actual use of the electricity .Thy LG government should not allow the issue of inflated bills as a result of fast running of the smart meters to snowball into major controversy which will be difficult to solve and address and instead it should use all the means at its disposal to change the apprehensions about false and inflated reading and as a consequence the inflated bills which pinches the consumers of electricity the most .The EDC should give stress on the efficiency of electricity services and at present the unscheduled and scheduled cuts of electricity in the scorching heat and humidity has made the life of people very difficult .Earlier it was given to understand that the metered areas will not be subject to electricity cuts but what the people encounter and face is the continuance of the electric cuts so often .
The government and its power Development Corporation should awake from deep slumber and provide uninterrupted power supply to the consumers of at least to the consumers of those areas which are metered and also to see to the complaints and grievances’ of the consumers that the smart meters run fast and provide inflated readings than the manual readings and as a result the heavy inflated electricity bills which choke the pockets of the poor consumers .The State Power Development Corporation should step in and correct the situation and remove the genuine doubts and suspicions from the consumers The sooner it is done the better.
(The author is a columnist, social and KP activist).
