Joint venture to overcome meter shortage

Lanka Electricity Company (Private) Ltd, a subsidiary of the Ceylon Electricity Board entered into a joint venture with the Ante Meter Company Ltd of China to locally manufacture its annual requirement of electricity meters to address the shortage of electricity metres.

The agreement to this effect was signed on Monday at the Trans Asia Hotel, Colombo with the participation of Power and Energy Minister W.D.J. Seneviratne.

The project will commence its operation in April this year. The establishment of the joint venture to locally manufacture meter readers will provide an answer to the ever-present meter shortage problem faced by the CEB.

The CEB needs 450,000 electricity meters annually to provide new electricity connections to consumers and the shortage of electricity meters have put the consumers to great inconvenience.

According to the Power and Energy Ministry, the long delays in the process of importing electricity meters has resulted in a long waiting list of consumers to get electricity for their houses.

The shortage of imported electricity meters have also resulted in huge losses to the CEB as consumers have resorted to tamper with these meters and using electricity in an illegal manner.

"The Inability of the CEB to purchase its annual requirement of meters has caused a great deal of inconvenience to the public and caused enormous losses to the CEB," Power and Energy Minister W.D.J. Seneviratne said.

With the successful implementation of the project, electricity meters will also be exported to SAARC countries after fulfilling the local requirement.

Chairman of LECO Champani Padmasekara and Jianwu Liu, Chairman of the Ante Meter Company signed the agreement to form this joint venture.