Noida: The power department was caught flat-footed this week as complaints over inflated electricity bills and sudden disconnections linked to the city’s ongoing smart meter rollout flooded in from across multiple sectors. Officials admitted that, overwhelmed by the sheer volume of incoming grievances, a server crash under the new urban restructuring plan (URP) system had left thousands of consumers without timely relief this week.Complaints poured in from sectors 82, 105, 12, 52, 31A, 33, 26, 45, 62, and others on Monday and Tuesday, with residents reporting power cuts despite having made payments, meters running abnormally fast, and technical failures during online recharges. Many said repeated attempts to reach officials for redress went unanswered.On Wednesday, a group of residents under the Federation of Noida Resident Welfare Associations (FONRWA) banner met senior PVVNL officials, including chief engineer Sanjay Kumar Jain and superintending engineers Umesh Yadav and Vivek Kumar, to demand immediate corrective action.
“Residents are experiencing significant difficulties after the installation of smart meters. In several cases, electricity supply has been disconnected despite payment being deducted,” said KK Jain, the federation’s secretary general.Chief engineer Jain acknowledged the breakdown, stating the new system’s server had buckled under the weight of complaints, preventing consumers from making timely payments and triggering prolonged disconnections. He assured residents that continuous improvements were being made to prevent a recurrence.Superintending engineer Umesh Yadav attributed the outages to software glitches, claiming most issues had been resolved by Wednesday.Approximately 40,000 households have so far been fitted with prepaid smart meters—digital electricity meters that record energy consumption in real time and transmit the data automatically to the utility provider, eliminating the need for manual readings or estimated billing—out of a total of 4.8 lakh consumers in the district. The transition, however, has proven deeply disruptive.Deepak Sharma, RWA president of Sector 105, said households with smart meters had seen a sharp rise in electricity bills under the prepaid system. “Consumers are distressed by sudden disconnections caused by balance depletion, glitches during online recharges, and meters running too fast,” he said.Under the URP system, rolled out statewide by UPPCL in Dec last year, consumers need to travel to centralised helpdesks, currently located only in sectors 18 and 16, to resolve billing and connection issues, replacing the earlier system where local substation staff handled such complaints.“Previously, billing errors were corrected by clerks or junior engineers at the local SDO office. Now, all consumers are required to visit Sector 18, a location that lacks even basic parking facilities. Due to long queues and heavy workload, getting a bill rectified now takes a considerable amount of time,” said Sharma.KK Jain echoed the concern, calling the two centralised helpdesks inadequate for a city of Noida’s size. “Residents from far-flung sectors face long commutes just to file a complaint. We have demanded that additional complaint resolution centres be opened at the earliest,” he said.FONRWA also demanded that no further smart meters be installed until the system stabilises fully, and that no consumer’s supply be disconnected while technical issues remain unresolved.Chief engineer Jain said the matter of temporary relief from disconnections would be taken up with the managing director. On billing discrepancies, he advised consumers to lodge complaints with officials so that a check meter could be installed for verification, and urged all residents to download the UPPCL mobile app for billing, payment, and complaint services.
