Gruha Jyothi Scheme: Big news for everyone. CM DK Shivakumar has now decided to perform surgery on the five guarantees of the Congress government. Following the revision of the important GruhaLakshmi Scheme, which provides financial strength to women by Rs 2000 every month, the Karnataka government has now decided to filter out another popular guarantee scheme of the state government, the ‘Gruha Jyothi Scheme’, which provides free electricity to households up to 200 units every month.
Since the introduction of the Gruhalakshmi Yojana, many underprivileged girls have received financial assistance. This government aid has allowed some to renovate their homes, while others have used the funds to drill borewells in their fields. The state government, which is moving towards revising the Griha Jyoti scheme with a view to reducing the financial burden on the government, is preparing to exclude ineligible beneficiaries from the scheme by linking SSUP/BPL/APL cards.
Currently, 1.70 crore families in the state benefit from the Griha Jyoti Yojana, with the Karnataka government spending Rs. 440 crore each month on this initiative. However, it has come to light that over 10 lakh non-voters in Karnataka are also taking advantage of the Griha Jyoti Yojana. Inspections have revealed alarming facts, including instances where individuals are exploiting the free electricity scheme using multiple RR numbers. In some cases, it has been discovered that beneficiaries are utilizing the free electricity for commercial purposes.
In response to the identification of lakhs of ineligible beneficiaries by the State Guarantee Scheme Implementation Authority, the government has decided to enforce the eligibility criteria more rigorously. Moving forward, it is proposed that only registered voters of Karnataka will be eligible for state guarantee schemes. To ensure compliance, the government is considering implementing a KYC process that verifies beneficiaries as registered voters and confirms that the RR numbers correspond to actual housing units. It is believed that this verification can be facilitated through Aadhaar, e-KYC, mobile number verification, and can be integrated into the Seva Sindhu portal.
At least 1.7 crore beneficiaries across the state are getting free electricity under the Griha Jyoti scheme under five Escoms, and the government is spending crores of rupees per month on subsidy. In such a situation, even ineligible people are getting the government scheme and getting the benefit of more than one Griha Jyoti scheme in the name of one person is a misuse of the government’s popular scheme. In this regard, it is also learnt that from now on, a rule is being implemented that a beneficiary under the Griha Jyoti scheme can have only one RR number.