More than 1.2 million people have registered for the ‘Gruha Jyothi’ scheme, under which free electricity will be provided up to 200 units a month, in the last four days even as technical glitches marred registrations in several places.

The registration for the scheme, which is one of the five poll guarantees of the Congress government in the state, began on June 18. On day 1, 96,305 customers registered and the number rose to 334,845 on day 2. On day 3, 385,481 had registered for the scheme, and 1.251 million registered on day 4. The scheme is set to be launched on August 1.

People lined up in front of Bescom officers in Bengaluru and expressed displeasure over delay in accepting applications due to the technical glitches on the Seva Sindhu portal.Similar scenes were seen in Mysuru, as servers held up the process of filing applications and kept hundreds of people waiting at most of Karnataka One, Grama One and Mysore One Centres and the offices of Chamundeshwari Electricity Supply Corporation (CESC).

Registration to the scheme is done on the ‘Seva Sindhu’ portal under a special custom-made page (https:evasindhugs.karnataka.gov.in). It is also done at Karnataka One, Grama One and Bengaluru One centers across the state. The consumer has to enter the customer ID of the electricity bill, their Aadhar number, and mobile number.

According to a Bescom press release, people have registered for the scheme largely from their desktops, mobiles and laptops and only a few have visited the electricity offices to register. “Due to several consumers trying to apply for Gruha Jyothi scheme, servers are down. We have already informed the concerned department to resolve the issue as soon as possible,” Bescom said.
Bescom has now done away with the deadline date to register for the scheme. Earlier, the last date to register for the scheme was July 5. But, after the “terrific response” to the scheme for domestic customers and to avoid any further server crashes, Bescom said there is no deadline fixed for the registration process and urged the customers not to panic.

Meanwhile, public works department minister Satish Jarkiholi has accused the BJP-led government at the Centre of “hacking” the servers leading to technical glitches over registrations. “We had planned properly, but the Centre has hacked and stopped it. They have hacked it as they do with EVMs, what can be done? We are trying to fix it,” Jarkiholi said.He said applications are being accepted physically too, and the state government is committed to implementing the scheme at any cost.

Defending Jarkiholi’s comments, industries minister MB Patil said, “He must have said it based on the information he had got. Satish Jarkiholi does not lie.”

Reacting to Jarkiholi’s claim, senior BJP leader and Union minister Pralhad Joshi termed it as “ridiculous”. “You (Jarkiholi) are a minister, you have said that you are a chief ministerial aspirant for the next term, be serious. I want to advise him not to damage Karnataka’s image by making such ridiculous statements,” he said.

Vjiayapura MLA Basanagouda Patil Yatnal demanded that chief minister Siddaramaiah file a case against Jarkiholi for spreading fake news. “Giving hollow promises, and on failing to fulfil them, telling new stories every day, has become the norm for the Karnataka government.” Pointing at Siddaramaiah’s statement regarding taking strict action against those spreading “fake news”, in a tweet he highlighted that, “now his minister’s claims that the state government’s server is hacked by the central government is a fake news.”