India must raise smart meter rollout to 2.5 lakh units a day to meet 2028 target
India will need to accelerate smart meter installations to nearly 2.5 lakh meters per day to achieve its target of deploying 25 crore smart meters by March 2028, a report said on Friday.
The report from CareEdge Ratings noted that around 6.5 crore smart meters had been installed across the country as of April 2026, representing nearly one quarter of the target.
The required pace is over 2.5 times the roughly 99,000 meters installed daily in FY26, while installation rates have improved significantly.
The report added that additions increased from 48 lakh meters in FY24 to 1.47 crore in FY25 and 3.63 crore in FY26.
Maharashtra accounts for around 1.1 crore installations, or 17 per cent of the cumulative total, while Maharashtra, Bihar and Uttar Pradesh together contribute nearly 47 per cent of all installations. However, deployment remains uneven across states.
Uttar Pradesh has installed around 32 per cent of its sanctioned volumes, compared with approximately 52 per cent in Bihar, highlighting the importance of execution capabilities and state level implementation in translating allocations into actual deployment.
The report estimated that full scale smart meter deployment could generate cumulative additional revenue of approximately Rs 1.84 lakh crore over the five years ending FY31, through improved billing and collection efficiency and lower Aggregate Technical and Commercial (AT&C) losses.
Sector indicators have improved, with AT&C losses declining from 20.73 per cent in FY20 to 15.04 per cent in FY25. Billing efficiency has reached nearly 88 per cent, while collection efficiency stands at around 97 per cent.
The gap between Average Cost of Supply and Average Revenue Realised has narrowed from Rs 0.72 per kWh in FY19 to Rs 0.07 per kWh in FY25, although the gap remains open.
Smart metering could raise billing efficiency to 97 per cent to 98 per cent, increase collection efficiency beyond 99 per cent under prepaid models and reduce AT&C losses to around 12 per cent.
The report noted that prepaid adoption remains a critical constraint. Despite approximately 6.5 crore installations, only around 9 per cent of meters were operating in prepaid mode as of April 2026.
“The economics of smart metering will ultimately depend on how effectively utilities translate installation into operational change. Accurate readings must feed into billing and payment systems, while consumers need the confidence and tools to manage their consumption,” said Ravleen Sethi, Director, CareEdge Ratings.
Nearly 89 per cent of bills are generated using actual meter readings, but around 49 per cent use automated readings.
