Hundreds of applicants queue up at Bangalore One centres as registration for Gruha Lakshmi begins

Disorderly lines of people extending beyond the centre’s premises with elderly women and middle-aged women carrying children populated the Kasturi Nagar Bangalore One centre where many had gathered for the registration of the Gruha Lakshmi scheme.

Disorderly lines of people extending beyond the centre’s premises with elderly women and middle-aged women carrying children populated the Kasturi Nagar Bangalore One centre where many had gathered for the registration of the Gruha Lakshmi scheme.

Agitated, many of them were talking amongst themselves about the delay. Manjula, a homemaker, who waited for more than three hours to get registered, said, “We also have work at home, have to cook food and pick up our children from school... If we are stuck here, there is no one to take care of our chores,” she rued.

As the registration for one of the government’s flagship scheme, Gruha Lakshmi, under which women heads of the families get ₹2,000, every month, applicants have been rushing to the Bangalore One centres across the City to get registered. While the applicants are complaining about the long queues and technical snags at the centres, the staff have been working extra hours to cater to the applicants of the scheme as well as those interested in availing Gruha Jyothi, another flagship scheme of the government which provides up to 200 units of free power.

The staff at the Bangalore One centres told The Hindu that an average of 300 applicants (of both Gruha Lakshmi and Gruha Jyothi schemes) queue up at the centres every day. They said that they were finding it difficult to manage the sudden surge in the number of people.

Shilpa, a Bangalore One clerk said, “The number of registrations per day is increasing every day. Applicants often break into fights that require assistance from the security. There is little that we can do.”

Varamahalaxmi, another househelp and beneficiary of the scheme, complained about the lack of workers in the Kasturi Nagar Bangalore One centre. “Earlier there used to be three clerks who used to work here but it has reduced to only two now.”

In Murphy Town, the staff mentioned they are working two hours overtime every day and were hiring new staff to support registrations for the schemes. “Before the schemes were launched, we worked from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m., but now we work from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m,” said Ayesha, the manager of Bangalore One Centre in Murphy Town. On Wednesday, the centre recorded 476 registrations for the schemes.