Srinagar, 12-May: Residents of Allochi Bagh Srinagar on Thursday staged a protest demonstration against the “installation of smart electric meters in the locality.”The Residents, including men, women and children assembled at the main road and were sloganeering against the installation of smart meters in the area.The protestors said that the maximum numbers of people in the locality are labourers and they can’t pay the huge electricity tariff bills as the hike in cooking gas and other daily items have already made life difficult for them.“We are full of electricity resources but still we are made to suffer by such schemes. If the government wants to install meters in our localities, then should give jobs to our children so that we can afford to pay power bills,” said female protester.The protesters said that even the current bills are not easy to pay given their financial conditions and questioned how they would be able to pay huge bills.Mushtaq Ahmad, a protester said, “Sometimes we are not getting the power supply for days together and still the department is delivering us tariff bills, and we are paying the same.”He said we won’t allow authorities to install these meters at any cost that will make their conditions much worse.Another protestor said that we don’t have issues with the current system of installed meters and we are paying the bills despite power outages. The protesting residents have urged Lieutenant Governor Manoj Sinha to revisit the decision of installation of smart meters in the area.Pertinently the process of installing smart meters began in December 2020 to control electricity thefts. The Jammu and Kashmir government has set the target of installing four lakh smart meters in union territory by 2023.(CNS)
