Jaipur: Jaipur discom replaced all the defective meters under its 18 circles, except for the agriculture connections, which will help it generate bills and collect revenues authentically. CM Bhajan Lal Sharma congratulated the engineers and staff of the discom with a post on social media platform X.Over the past two years, the utility replaced 2.78 lakh defective meters. Only 13,493 defective meters remain in the three-phase agriculture category, which are also being replaced on priority.The move is expected to sharply reduce consumer complaints related to incorrect or average billing. Earlier, consumers with faulty meters were billed on the basis of average consumption, often leading to disputes and dissatisfaction.More importantly, regulatory provisions mandate a 5% rebate in electricity charges if a meter remains defective for over 2 months, resulting in direct revenue loss for the discom.The financial impact of defective meters was significant. Jaipur discom extended rebates of Rs 9.41 crore in FY 2022-23 and Rs 5.41 crore in FY 2023-24. This burden was brought down sharply to Rs 2.04 crore in FY 2024-25 and further reduced to just Rs 16 lakh in FY 2025-26 so far, the discom said in a statement. Officials said the figure is expected to come down to 0 in the coming months.Apart from revenue loss, average billing also distorted feeder- and sub-division-level loss assessments, making it difficult to accurately estimate distribution losses. The Rajasthan Electricity Regulatory Commission (RERC) repeatedly advised utilities to eliminate defective meters to improve operational efficiency and data accuracy.
