Smart meter tenders are taking a breather. A “natural pause,” as Jitendra Kumar Agarwal, joint managing director of Genus Power, called it in a post-earnings call in June. Utility companies, he explained, are still absorbing earlier orders. 

Investors had little reason to be alarmed. After all, the smart-metering solutions company had been on a dream run. It had grown its order book by 50% in two years to touch Rs 30,000 crore ($3.5 billion), and now commanded half the market for smart meters across the country.

The market itself was growing, thanks to the central government’s highly ambitious target of switching 250 million regular metersMeters that manually measure electricity usage and display it on a dial or screen to smart onesMeters that digitally measure electricity usage and transmit the data automatically, often in real time, to the utility company by 2025. To speed things along, it was even subsidising electricity distribution companies’ (discom) switch to smart meters as part of the Revamped Distribution Sector Scheme (RDSS).

It seemed like a win-win: consumers got real-time updates on their electricity consumption, and discoms got access to more accurate data, helping them bolster their revenue and check power theft.

For Genus, this meant a steady supply of buyers, including most discoms in the country. Its revenue doubled year-on-year in the last two fiscals to reach Rs 2,400 crore in FY25. Its share price had an even greater run—jumping over 300% in the same period. 

But all this jubilance belies an uncomfortable truth: India’s smart-meter drive is nowhere near the finish line. Only 20 million smart meters—less than 10% of the target—had been installed by May. 

The 2024 general elections, followed by successive state elections in Haryana and Maharashtra, just slowed things down further, according to multiple analysts who watch the infrastructure sector. 

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