Pricey Adani forces Tangedco to cancel tender for smart meters

CHENNAI: Tangedco has cancelled the global tender floated for the procurement of smart meters, citing the high cost quoted by Adani Energy Solutions Ltd (AESL), which emerged as the lowest bidder in one of the four packages.

According to Tangedco sources, Adani Energy Solutions Ltd (AESL) emerged as the lowest bidder for the package 1 of the smart meter tender, which covered eight districts, including Chennai, Tiruvallur, Kancheepuram, and Chengalpattu, and involved installing over 82 lakh smart meters.

Sources said the cost quoted by the AESL was high and negotiations were held with the bidders to reduce the cost. However, since the offered rate was not acceptable, the tender was cancelled. A retender would be floated soon, they said noting that the tenders floated for the other three packages were also cancelled due to administrative reasons.

The four tenders were floated in August 2023 for the appointment of advanced metering infrastructure (AMI) service providers for Smart Prepaid Metering and Smart System Metering in Tangedco, on DBFOOT (Design, Build, Finance, Own, Operate and Transfer) basis under the Rs 19,000 crore Centre-funded Revamped Distribution Sector Scheme (RDSS). A total of 3,00,14,117 smart meters were planned to be procured for replacing the existing digital meters in all the low-tension (LT) and high-tension (HT) consumers except for the agricultural and hut consumers in 38 districts, 4.72 lakh distribution transformers metering, 16,974 feeder metering and 1,300 boundaries metering.

Under the DBFOOT basis, the Advanced Metering Infrastructure Service Provider would be installing the smart meters at the consumer premises and maintaining and operating the metering infrastructure. Tangedco would repay the cost of the smart project on a per meter per month rental basis for 10 years.

Tangedco planned to implement the monthly billing for the LT consumers including domestic, who pay their bills on a bi-monthly basis, after the installation of the smart meters. Even as the union government insists on introducing prepaid smart meters, Tangedco wants to implement the post-paid meter system as the consumers fear that subsidised electricity will be denied.

Factbox:

Smart meters of LT, LTCT and HT consumers in the state: 3,00,14,117

Chennai: 22,74,521

Coimbatore: 16,92,592

Chengalpattu: 15,40,817

Salem: 14,76,313

Tiruvallur: 14,13,067

Madurai: 13,28,479

Tiruchirapalli: 10,90,939

Kancheepuram: 7,66,539

Distribution Transformers Metering: 4.72 lakh

Feeder Metering: 16,974

Boundaries Metering: 1,300