Indian communications company Bharti Airtel is to provide IoT connectivity for 200,000 smart meters in a contract with TP Western Odisha Distribution, a joint venture between the government of Odisha and Tata Power.

Around 70,000 smart meters will be connected in the first phase.

The connectivity mandate will be augmented with Airtel’s proprietary IoT platform, Airtel IoT Hub, which will help the utility track and monitor these smart meters with analytics while maintaining reliability augmented with telco grade security. Smart metering is one of the most rapidly advancing use case for cellular IoT in India with several power distribution companies looking to invest in this space to prevent revenue leakage.

Smart metering is also one of the fastest growing service lines within the IoT business portfolio for Airtel. The company is working with multiple state utilities in Punjab, Meghalaya, Jharkhand, West Bengal and Bihar.

The government of India has an ambitious vision of replacing 300 million conventional meters with smart meters in the next five years as part of its advanced metering infrastructure (AMI) initiative. Airtel IoT aims to play a pivotal role in enabling this vision. Power sectors digitisation aided by the government’s push to usher in transparency and consumer friendly measures in this sector should see innovations such as smart meters become commonplace.

“We want to create a customer focussed, technology savvy and future ready distribution company that’s sustainable,” said Gajanan Kale, chief executive officer of TP Western Odisha Distribution. “We believe that technology can provide us a lot of answers as we step out to create such a company. We are looking forward to deploying smart meters for billing in partnership with Airtel and making best use of their IoT technology to deliver reliable and customer friendly services.”

Siddharth Talawadekar, business head for IoT at Airtel, added: “Airtel is delighted to partner with TP Western Odisha Distribution in their attempt to bring best-in-class technology to consumers across the state. As India’s electricity sector embraces changes ushered in by new reforms, we look forward to set an example demonstrating how technology can enable efficient service delivery for companies that are customer friendly. With capabilities of remote network feasibility, advanced diagnostics and a future-ready IoT platform with readily available APIs for seamless integration, we are confident to serve our customers well in this space.”

IoT is one of the fastest growing businesses for Airtel. The company counts several Indian companies across domains such as electric vehicles, automotive, utilities, logistics and fin-tech as its clients.