The Chief Minister's Office of Chhattisgarh on Thursday, 16 July 2026, urged residents across the state to use the 'Mor Bijlee' app to monitor household electricity consumption and achieve better savings through smart meters, sharing testimonials from citizens in a video post on X. The official post, in Hindi, read: 'Mor Bijlee' app se bijli khapat par rakhen nazar aur karen behtar bachat — ('Track your electricity consumption with the Mor Bijlee app and save better'). The message invited residents to hear directly from citizens of the state about the benefits of smart meters, tagging Surguja, Durg, and Mahasamund districts as part of the outreach.

Context

The Mor Bijlee app is a mobile application promoted by the Chhattisgarh government to give residential consumers real-time visibility into their electricity usage via smart meters. The app is part of the state's broader push toward digital governance under the #DigitalChhattisgarh initiative, enabling consumers to track consumption patterns, anticipate bills, and reduce wastage without visiting a distribution office. The video shared alongside the post features accounts from ordinary residents — a format designed to build public trust in the technology by centering citizen voices rather than official claims.

Policy Backdrop

Chhattisgarh's smart metering drive is anchored in a series of national-level reforms. The National Smart Grid Mission, launched in 2013, set the framework for deploying advanced metering infrastructure across Indian states. The Ujjwal DISCOM Assurance Yojana (UDAY), introduced in 2015, mandated metering reforms and set loss-reduction targets for state electricity distribution companies. More recently, the Revamped Distribution Sector Scheme (RDSS), approved in 2021, allocated central funding to states specifically for large-scale smart meter installation, with the goal of improving the financial viability of distribution companies (DISCOMs) by reducing aggregate technical and commercial losses. Chhattisgarh, a coal-rich state with substantial power generation capacity, has been integrating these national mandates into its local distribution network.

Stakeholders and Impact

The primary beneficiaries are residential electricity consumers across Chhattisgarh, who gain granular, real-time data on their usage — information that was previously unavailable or accessible only through monthly paper bills. For the state power distribution company, smart meters reduce billing errors, curb theft, and enable remote disconnection and reconnection, improving revenue collection. The specific tagging of Surguja, Durg, and Mahasamund districts suggests these are among the areas where smart meter deployment is active or being expanded. Surguja, located in northern Chhattisgarh, has been referenced in earlier rollout communications for the state's metering modernisation programme. Indian states broadly have found that pairing physical infrastructure upgrades — smart meters — with consumer-facing mobile interfaces significantly improves public engagement with energy management. The citizen-testimonial format used in this post mirrors strategies adopted in other states to counter scepticism about new metering technology, particularly concerns around billing accuracy.

What's Next

The key indicator to watch is the pace of smart meter expansion to districts beyond those already tagged, and whether consumer complaint data on billing disputes shows improvement as coverage widens. The CMO's active social media amplification of citizen testimonials signals that the government intends to sustain a public awareness campaign alongside the infrastructure rollout, using platforms like X to normalise app adoption among a wider demographic. A broader statewide rollout tied to RDSS targets would represent the next significant milestone for Chhattisgarh's electricity distribution modernisation.