A smart meter is an electricity meter that records how much power a home uses and sends the readings over a network by itself. Nobody has to visit to read it. In many Indian homes, it is replacing the old meter that a meter reader had to check once a month, or once in two months in some states.
An old meter shows only a total number, and an employee of the electricity company walks from house to house to note it down. That is slow, and the readings are sometimes wrong or invented. A smart meter measures the power used, often every 15 or 30 minutes. It then sends the readings over a radio or mobile network to the utility's computers. This network, with the software behind it, is advanced metering infrastructure (AMI). The meter may use a cellular IoT module, a small chip that connects it to the mobile network.
A smart meter can also receive commands. The most common one is for a prepaid meter. Take, for example, a family in Lucknow that recharges its meter online for ₹500, just like a mobile phone. The meter shows the balance. When the balance runs out, the utility can switch the supply off from a distance. In Uttar Pradesh, the power corporation first gives the family three days of emergency credit, and it does not cut the supply on Sundays or holidays. The utility can also see at once which meters have lost power, so it learns about a fault without waiting for a customer's call.
The readings are useful beyond billing. The energy management system uses them to see demand in each area. Energy disaggregation software uses them to show a customer which appliances use the most power. A utility data API can give them to other apps with the customer's permission. A smart meter can also be linked to a rooftop solar inverter, so that power sent back to the grid is measured too.
India has approved about 20 crore smart meters under its national programme, one of the largest roll-outs in the world. By June 2026, about 5.7 crore of them were installed. The distribution companies, or discoms, that buy them are mostly owned by state governments, so they buy through government tenders. They want smart meters because they lose a lot of money to power theft and unpaid bills.