The government has finalized a plan to install as many as 1 crore 32
lacs and 36 thousands of prepaid meters in the next five years
(2016-2021) and Rural Electrification Board (REB) of Bangladesh alone
will be responsible for installing 1 crore of them.
A discussion program was organized titled “Introducing Prepaid Meter
system for customer Service” on the occasion of intl. Public Service
day in the Mukti hall of Power division. The ministry of Power, Energy
and Mineral Resources organized the program on Sunday. Sources from
the Power Division confirmed the plan of introducing prepaid meters in
such a large scale.
Prepaid meter will exterminate the hassles of traditional bill paying
system. Subscribers will be able to recharge their prepaid cards by
going to the nearest Vending stations. Subscribers will also be able
to know their usage and remaining balance info on demand. Moreover,
this system will eradicate the needs all kind of bill regarding papers
and the cost, time needed for it.
Yet, the related authorities couldn’t find any alternative employment
solutions for the current meter readers and lack of skilled personnel
for the new system caused some delay in implementing the automatic
prepaid meter system. State minister for Power, Energy and Mineral
Resources Nasrul Hamid noticed these issues while delivering his
speech at the meeting. He suggested the Managers to keep an online
payment system for the prepaid metering system.
Senior secretary of Public Administration ministry Kamal Abdul Naser
Choudhury, chairman of Petrobangla Ishtiaque Ahmed and chairman of
Power Development Board Shamsul Hasan Mia had their speeches at the
meeting. The Managing Director of DPDC Nazrul Hasan and deputy chief
of Power Division Shah Md. Helal Uddin demonstrated two separate
presentations on the benefits and the installation procedure of
prepaid meter system respectively before the participants of the
meeting.
The basic Principle of Prepayment is to buy Power in advance and
inform the meter in some ways. The credit stored is deducted as per
energy usages and the meter will cut the output line as the credit
reaches zero. If the consumers buy more credit and recharges, he can
enjoy energy usage without discontinuity. Vending Stations are used to
sell credit to the consumers. A number of vending stations are
connected to a System Master Station (SMS). The SMS is used to process
the data centrally.
The Power Development Board (PDB) first introduced prepaid system in
Sylhet but it failed to achieve the goal. However, Desco installed
5,000 prepaid meters at Uttara in 2005 under a pilot project. The
government so far has introduced a total number of 1 lac 9 thousands
prepaid meters in the selective regions on Dhaka, Chittagong, Sylhet
and Sirajganj. These experimental installations were proven
successful, considering the user feedback, added revenue and overall
quality of service.