Over 85,000 consumers, most of who shifted houses, use Gruha Jyothi’s delink option

From August 6 this year, the Energy Department provided the beneficiaries of Gruha Jyothi an option to delink their registration and relink it when they move to new houses. Until October 30, a total of 85,047 consumers across various power supply utilities in Karnataka had made use of this new feature.

From August 6 this year, the Energy Department provided the beneficiaries of Gruha Jyothi an option to delink their registration and relink it when they move to new houses. Until October 30, a total of 85,047 consumers across various power supply utilities in Karnataka had made use of this new feature. 

Gruha Jyothi is a flagship scheme of the Congress government in Karnataka which provides free power up to 200 units to domestic consumers. Consumers can avail this facility by linking their RR number to their Aadhaar number. But, when the same consumers had to change houses, especially those who live in rented units, they did not have an option to avail the benefits of the scheme at their new house. 

Hence, after multiple requests from consumers, the government introduced the new feature on account of the first anniversary of the scheme’s launch.

So far, 62,444 consumers have made use of this feature in the Bangalore Electricity Supply Company (Bescom) region, 6,742 consumers have used it in the Chamundeshwari Electricity Supply Company (CESC) region, 5,513 have used it in the Gulbarga Electricity Supply Company (Gescom) region, 5,772 consumers in Hubballi Electricity Supply Company (Hescom) region and 4,519 consumers have benefitted from it in Mangaluru Electricity Supply Company (Mescom) region. 

“Most of these delinks have happened in Bengaluru where people frequently shift houses. In most other cases, people who move from one city to another are using the feature. Although we do not have specific reregistration data, they all usually reregister once they settle in,” said a senior official from Bescom, which is the nodal agency for the feature’s implementation. 

However, many consumers say that they are not aware of this feature. They are also unhappy with the fact that once they move to a new rented house, their allotment of units will be based on the previous tenant’s usage instead of theirs. 

“We shifted from our rented house in Banashankari to Jayanagar a month ago. We had linked our Aadhaar number with the meter in the Banashankari house and were not aware that we could delink it and reregister again. We only found out about it when we went to the nearest Bescom office to free our Aadhaar number from that meter. While they popularised Gruha Jyothi so much, it is absolutely necessary for the government to publicise these features too. Otherwise, what is the point in introducing them,” asked Krupa. M., a consumer.