Belagavi: The verification drive for beneficiaries of the Gruha Jyoti free electricity scheme is progressing slowly in Belagavi district, causing concern among consumers. Karnataka govt has launched a door-to-door audit of beneficiaries with a deadline of Aug 31, to identify ineligible applicants and prevent misuse of the scheme. According to Hescom, verification has been completed for only 5.4 lakh (54%) of the 10 lakh beneficiaries in the district so far.The verification of the records of Gruha Jyoti beneficiaries is underway in the Belagavi district, under the jurisdiction of Hubballi Electricity Supply Company (Hescom). The residents of different locations are waiting for Hescom staff to arrive for verification.The staff are visiting homes and are conducting the verification at various locations. People are worried that they will be dropped from the scheme. Sagar Belagaonkar, a resident of Shahu Nagar, said that many beneficiaries in urban and suburban areas are residents of rented houses. But only a handful of tenants have signed rental agreements. Many poor people, including labourers, have not signed rental agreements. Such people are in fear of losing their benefit due to confusion over documents.Hescom officials said that their staff visited many houses and that beneficiaries were not available. For that, they are sitting in the temples and the community halls of the respective areas and checking the documents. It is similar to the SIR model. According to officials, out of 10,05,013 beneficiaries in Belagavi district, verification process of only 5,46,013 beneficiaries has been completed so far.The issues and solutionsAccording to officials, they are currently facing difficulties due to a server problem in the verification of household registration documents. In some areas, the server is slowing down and data is not uploading due to network issues. Sometimes beneficiaries have to wait for hours. The problem is due to increased server load, and the technical team is fixing it from time to time.There is time till Aug 31, to review document verification. If tenants do not have a rental agreement, they should fill out the application form provided by Hescom. There is no need to pay for the application. Beneficiaries must provide their Aadhaar card, photograph, voter ID card, rental agreement documents, ration card, and electricity bills, which will be recorded by Hescom staff in Seva Sindhu software.Praveenkumar C, superintending engineer (electrical), Hescom Belagavi, said that despite difficulties in many places due to several issues, the verification of documents of more than 50% of beneficiaries has been completed so far.
