- **Eppeltone Engineers is an Indian manufacturer that has spent nearly five decades moving from power supplies into the heart of the electricity grid - it now designs and builds the smart meters that tell utilities exactly how much power every home and factory uses. The company was founded in 1977 making switch-mode power supplies and power-conditioning gear, pivoted into static energy meters in 1999, and has since grown into a supplier empanelled with over 30 state electricity boards and central utilities across 17 Indian states. The recurring approach that explains everything else is a conviction that the company should own the full product design in-house - Gerber files, software, hardware, assembly and testing are all done internally, with the fabrication of PCBs, etc., done in China - so that it can control quality, chase government tenders with its own intellectual property, and now extend that same design-led model from electricity meters into gas, water and railway equipment.** # Business segments Four engines at different stages - a tender-driven smart-meter cash cow, a fledgling installation-and-software services layer, a legacy power-systems workshop, and an emerging gas-and-water bet - all fed by a single in-house R&D and manufacturing backbone. ## 1. Smart energy meters: the tender-driven core **The company makes the full range of electricity meters that India’s state utilities buy through competitive bids - nearly all revenue comes from supplying hardware to government entities and the turnkey contractors who serve them.** - **Designed inside, fabricated outside** - every meter’s Gerber files, software and hardware are created by the company’s own R&D team; only the raw PCB fabrication is outsourced to China, which keeps the intellectual property in-house while the company assembles, tests and packs the finished product at its Greater Noida plant. - **Approved by the gatekeepers** - the company is empanelled with more than 30 DISCOMs (distribution companies), CPSUs (central public-sector undertakings) and major turnkey contractors, and holds approvals from Power Grid and NTPC, so it can bid on tenders across most of the country. - **A defect rate that wins repeat orders** - the field rejection rate runs at 0.3%-0.4% per year against an industry allowance of 1%, which matters because government buyers track failure rates closely and a poor record can shut a supplier out of future tenders. - **The mix has already flipped to smart** - by the first half of FY26, old-style static meters had shrunk to an order book of roughly ₹1.3 crores and were expected to contribute no more than 3-4% of the top line; the portfolio is now overwhelmingly smart meters built to the BIS 16444 standard, launched in 2020. - **Paid slowly, so working capital is tight** - government clients typically pay in 60 to 120 days and do not give advances, which means the company carries a working-capital cycle of six to seven months from raw material to cash collection. ## 2. AMI services and digital platforms: the service layer being built on top of the meters **The company is moving from simply selling meters to installing them, connecting them to software, and earning service fees - a business that could eventually rival the manufacturing engine in size.** - **From box-shifter to one-stop shop** - historically the company only supplied meters; now it is taking orders to complete the installation and hand over a working smart-metering project, which opens a recurring service revenue stream separate from hardware sales. - **Waiting on the AMISP licence** - the company has applied to become an AMISP (Advanced Metering Infrastructure Service Provider) under the government’s ₹2.5 lakh crore distribution-reform scheme, with approval expected in early FY27; once granted, management estimates the opportunity at ₹300-400 crores. - **The software backbone is called MidasEpp** - a proprietary Head End System that collects data from smart meters, with a focus on endpoint protection and readiness for AI and cybersecurity, so the company can offer utilities a full digital stack rather than just the physical meter. - **A communication module that talks to any meter** - the Intelligent Communication Module (NIC) supports RF Mesh and cellular networks and includes edge processing capability, which lets it integrate across multi-vendor meter fleets and run light AI functions at the device level. - **A dedicated team with decades of installation experience** - the company has set up a new office near Hauz Khas in New Delhi staffed with professionals carrying over 20 years of meter-installation experience, signalling that services are being treated as a separate business rather than an afterthought. ## 3. Power and energy systems: the legacy workshop that still ships **This is the original business from 1977 - power-conditioning equipment, battery chargers and custom industrial products - now a smaller but active line that also feeds into railways.** - **The founding product line, still running** - the company began as a maker of SMPS (Switch Mode Power Supplies) and power-conditioning devices, and it continues to supply high-end battery chargers, UPS systems and industrial energy solutions alongside the metering business. - **Custom engineering for institutional buyers** - the company produces tailor-made electrical and electronic products built to client specifications, which gives it a small but sticky niche serving industrial and institutional customers who cannot buy off the shelf. - **A railway charger under every carriage** - a new product, the underslung charger, is a 4.5-kilowatt unit installed under each wagon of a railway carriage to charge a battery bank that powers emergency lighting LEDs; the product has passed factory inspection and prototype approval from RDSO (the railways’ design authority) and is now in field trials. ## 4. Gas and water meters: the next adjacency under development **The company is applying its meter-design skills to gas and water utilities - products that are in the final stages of approval and could open a market several times larger than today’s electricity-meter opportunity.** - **Water meters are ready, gas meters are close** - water meter testing was completed and the report received by September 2025; gas meter testing was expected to finish within weeks of that date, and by April 2026 both product lines were at an advanced stage of the approval cycle with order inflows expected in the coming financial year. - **A market that could grow sixfold** - the gas meter market in India was estimated at roughly ₹200-250 crores annually, with an expectation of reaching around ₹1,200 crores over the next five to seven years as piped gas extends into rural areas, so the company is positioning itself before that expansion begins. - **Built by a team hired specifically for this** - the company has onboarded skilled professionals with over 15 years of experience in the gas and water metering industry, rather than trying to stretch its electricity-meter engineers into an unfamiliar domain. # Manufacturing infrastructure and R&D **Every product the company sells runs through a single integrated facility where design, assembly, testing and packing happen under one roof - and a second, larger plant is under construction to triple capacity.** - **One plant today, two tomorrow** - the current facility in Greater Noida covers roughly 36,000 sq. ft. and can support revenue of around ₹300 crores; a new 60,000 sq. ft. fully automated plant is being built next door, with combined revenue potential across both plants of ₹500-600 crores per year once operational by mid-FY27. - **Everything except the bare boards** - the R&D team designs software, hardware and Gerber files in-house; PCB fabrication is done in China, but assembly, testing, packing and manufacturing are all performed internally on the company’s own SMT (surface-mount technology) lines and moulding machines. - **A NABL-approved lab backs the quality promise** - the in-house testing laboratory is accredited by NABL (the national accreditation body), and the company is building an EMI/EMC lab plus an RF tuning lab for smart meters, which means it can validate products without relying on outside test houses. - **R&D spending is baked into the model** - future R&D expenditure is planned at ₹12-13 crores per year, representing 6-10% of turnover, split between capital expenditure of ₹8-9 crores and recurring costs of ₹4-5 crores. # Group structure and partners **A family-run company that converted to a public limited entity only in 2024 and listed on the NSE SME platform in mid-2025, with no subsidiaries or joint ventures.** - The company was originally incorporated as Eppeltone Engineers Private Limited in September 2002, taking over the going concern of the proprietorship M/s. Eppeltone Engineers; it converted to a public limited company in May 2024 and listed on the NSE SME Emerge Platform on 24 June 2025. - The promoters - brothers Rohit Chowdhary (Managing Director) and Deven Chowdhary (Whole Time Director) - held 53.83% and 29.44% of the equity respectively as of March 2025; Reshu Chowdhary, who is Rohit Chowdhary’s spouse, is a Director. - The company operates from a registered office in Defence Colony, New Delhi, a corporate office in Noida’s Techno Park, two works addresses in Greater Noida, and a warehouse in Surajpur. - It holds a Bronze Partner designation with Smart Utility, a Government of India flagship programme.