Puducherry: Puducherry government entered into an agreement with Dongfan Electronics, China, to implement the smart grid project in the state.

Superintendenting Engineer of Puducherry Electricity department Madhivanan and Dongfang’s representative Sriram Anumanghappalli signed the Memorandum of Understanding in the presence of the power minister R Kamalakannan here on Wednesday.

The union government had taken up the process of setting up of smart grids in India in order to achieve most efficient management of power distribution system and Puducherry government was approached by the Power Grid Corporation.

Power Grid agreed to share 50 per cent expenses of the Puducherry administration and the union government would bear the rest. An agreement in this regard was signed in 2012.

The Central government had given permission for the implementation of the project in Puducherry at a cost of Rs 46.11 crore. However, in 2013, Power Grid wrote to Puducherry administration that it could not bear the 50 per cent expenses and to cancel the agreement signed earlier. And so it became the responsibility of the Puducherry government to mobilise 50 per cent cost of the project.

Under the proposed project steps would be taken to set up a control room with modern technologies and to include all the power consumers in a phased manner. As per the project, which was approved by the cabinet, 34,000 power consumers would be provided with smart meters at a cost of Rs 43.91 crore.