During a recent trip to India, I noted a great stir among utilities to talk about the "Smart Grid". However, the real subject was AMI alone. With the high theft, high regulation structure of most of India, I would suggest focusing on large gains in the industrial, commercial, and ever expanding buildings (tenant) markets. Utilities should install the networks and equipment to manage the loads at these sites (without mandatory outages like today) along with rates that incent customers to participate in demand response initiatives. The losses and theft cannot be seriously addressed until the state agrees that it is a problem to be dealt with. Just because I have data that tampering is occurring or has occurred, doesn't necessarily mean that it will stop! AMI doesn't solve the problems of uncollected debt, laws that deny the utility rights to disconnect, or poverty driven desparation. It seems a lot of vendors are hungry to sell their products to Indian utilities and the utilities are getting confused by the whirlwind of information being thrown at them. AMI is only a piece of the Smart Grid solution. India should consider which pieces will give them the biggest gain and focus on implementing those. In the meantime, the utilities and the government need to agree on proper policies for transparency and real penalties for not adhering. Only then will the AMI piece bring any real value to the country.