Gruha Jyothi verification raises concern over benefits

The door-to-door verification of Gruha Jyothi beneficiaries and the documents being asked of them, has left many people in confusion and fear of loosing the benefits of free electricity upto 200 units.

As per the press release issued by the Energy Department, consumers have been asked to provide Aadhaar, Voter ID, PAN card, tenancy or rental agreement, caste certificate and ration card details during this verification process.

Questions have been raised as to why caste certificate, ration cards and PAN cards are being sought, when the Gruha Jyothi scheme is a universal scheme with no exclusions but for their electricity consumption.

Earlier, Chief Minister D. K. Shivakumar had also said that non voters of Karnataka will be removed from the beneficiaries list of Gruha Jyothi guarantee scheme. Therefore, entering the voter ID details will help the department identify the voters and non voters.

However, asking for PAN card details from beneficiaries have led to suspicion if professionals who are tax payers will be eliminated from Gruha Jyothi 2.0 list. A beneficiary residing in R.T. Nagar, said, “When the scheme was launched, the government asked for electricity bill and Aadhaar card. Now that they are entering the PAN card details, the government can easily track if the beneficiary is a tax payer and eliminate them. I also provided Voter ID, Aadhaar and PAN card details.”

Leader of Opposition in the Karnataka Legislative Assembly R. Ashok took to social media platform X and alleged that the government seeking copies of PAN card and caste certificate indicated it wanted to exclude many from the benefits of Gruha Jyothi scheme, which was marketed as a universal scheme before polls. “Voter ID and Aadhar card is more than enough to identify whether a beneficiary was a voter in the State or not. Why does the government need caste certificate and PAN cards?,” he asked.

A senior official at Bescom, said, “At present, all the Escoms are only collecting all the data related to beneficiaries of Gruha Jyothi. The government will take a call on whoever is eligible or not eligible to take them out of the list.”

In the past two days, 85,331 residences have been surveyed across the State.