Last updated: 26 August 2026
Ken Consortium ("we", "us") provides meter reading and bill distribution services to utility companies in Pune, covering gas, electricity and water. We read meters and record readings on behalf of the utility that bills you — we are not your gas, electricity or water supplier.
Registered address: 7, Dnyaneshwar Nagari Co-Op Housing Society, Pune-Satara Road, Dhankawadi, Pune 411 043 Corporate address: 1, R Cube, Mohannagar, Dhankawadi, Pune 411 043 Email: info@kenconsortium.in Telephone: +91 8552 830188 · +91 8625 830188
This policy covers our meter reading operations, including the WhatsApp service on the numbers above, our field agents' mobile application, and this website.
From your utility company, so that we can read your meter:
From you, when you send us a meter reading over WhatsApp:
From our field agents, when they visit:
We do not collect payment details, and we never ask for them. If anyone claiming to be us asks you for a payment, a card number, an OTP or a password over WhatsApp, it is not us. We only ever ask for a photograph of your meter.
We use the information above to record your meter reading and pass it to the utility company that bills you. That is the whole purpose. Specifically:
| What | Why |
|---|---|
| Your mobile number | to receive your reading and reply to you |
| The photograph | to read the meter, and as the evidence behind the reading |
| Your BP and meter number | to attach the reading to the right account |
| Previous readings | to check a new reading is plausible before it is billed |
| Message history | so we can answer a query about what was submitted |
We process this information to perform the meter reading service our client utility has engaged us for, and to meet the record-keeping that billing requires.
Your meter photograph is read by an automated system, and this is the part we most want you to know about.
When you send a meter photograph over WhatsApp, we transmit that photograph to Google's Gemini API — a third-party artificial intelligence service — which reads the digits on the meter and returns the number to us. Google processes the image to provide that result.
Two things about this that matter:
automatically. Our office reviews the reading before it is recorded, so no bill is produced by a machine alone.
processed automatically, reply to us on WhatsApp and say so, and we will read it by hand instead.
We do not use your photographs to train artificial intelligence models, and we do not permit our processors to do so.
where it is needed as evidence.
over, and Meta processes it under their own terms.
behalf under contract.
We do not sell your information, and we do not share it for advertising.
Some of these providers process information on servers outside India.
Readings and their photographs are kept as the record behind a bill, so they are retained for as long as the billing record needs to be auditable, and in line with what our client utility requires of us.
Field staff applications are different, and have their own rule (§12): an applicant's identity documents are deleted within 30 days of a rejected application, and a staff member's within 30 days of their engagement ending.
you further reminders.
send a photograph whenever you like, and we will still reply.
Under India's Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023, you may ask us to:
Some information reaches us from your utility company rather than from you. For corrections to your name, address, BP number or meter number, your utility is usually the right place to start, and we will help you get there.
To exercise any of these, write to info@kenconsortium.in.
Access to customer information is restricted to staff who need it for their work. Meter photographs are held in private storage that is not publicly reachable, and links to them are short-lived. Our systems record who accessed or changed a reading.
If you are unhappy with how we have handled your information, our Grievance Officer is Rajendra Nigade, Ken Consortium. Write to info@kenconsortium.in or telephone +91 8552 830188, and we will respond.
If we cannot resolve it, you may complain to the Data Protection Board of India.
We will update this page when the service changes, and the date at the top will tell you when we last did.
If you apply to work for us as a meter-reading agent, we collect — with your knowledge, because you upload each item yourself:
a 10th/12th marksheet or degree certificate, and a photograph of yourself
We collect these to verify who you are and that you hold the qualifications the job requires, before you visit customers' homes in our name. Each document is examined by an automated system (Google's Gemini API, the same processor as §4) to check that it is a readable scan of the right kind of document; a person — our administrator — makes the actual decision on every application. Your documents are held in private storage that only our own service can reach, and they are shown to our administrators through one-time links.
How long we keep them: if your application is rejected or abandoned, your documents are deleted within 30 days. If you join us, they are kept while you work for us and deleted within 30 days of your engagement ending. The record that you applied, and the decision, is kept.
Your §8 rights apply to all of it. Applying does not create an account — an account exists only if we approve your application.