The Energy Efficiency Services Limited (EESL) has invited bids for the supply of 2.35 million smart electricity meters based on 4G/3G/2G mode to be installed across India.

The last date for the submission of bids is September 15, 2020, and the pre-bid meeting will take place on September 07, 2020.

Interested bidders will have to submit an amount of ₹137.6 million (~$1.8 million) as the earnest money deposit (EMD). All micro and small enterprises (MSEs) will be exempted from the payment of tender fee and EMD.

The bill of quantity (BoQ) has been mentioned below:

As per the tender document, 25% of the total quantity has been earmarked for MSEs, out of which 4% and 3% has been set aside for procurement from MSEs owned by scheduled caste, scheduled tribe, and women entrepreneurs, respectively.

To take part in the bidding process, the bidder should be a manufacturer of smart meters and should have successfully supplied 705,000 electricity meters to the government department, public sector undertaking, distribution companies (DISCOMs), or private companies in the last three years.

Regarding the financial criteria, the bidder should have an average annual turnover of at least ₹825 million (~$11.3 million) during the last three financial years. The bidder should have been profitable in any two of the previous three financial years, and the net worth of the bidders should not be less than 100% of the paid-up share capital.

In May this year, EESL announced that it had installed over 1.2 million smart meters in India under the Ministry of Power’s Smart Meter National Program. The Ministry’s public sector undertaking also said that it had enabled DISCOMs to generate a billing efficiency of 95% through the use of its smart meters during the lockdown, resulting in a 15-20% average increase in monthly revenue per consumer.

Earlier, EESL had issued a tender for the procurement of five million smart meters to be installed across India. India had applied for financing from the Asian Development Bank towards the cost of the project titled ‘Scaling Up Demand-Side Energy Efficiency Sector.’