No relief for newly built homes under free power scheme

Bengaluru: The Energy Department has no plans to revise the entitlement units that consumers are eligible for under the Gruha Jyothi, the Congress government’s free power scheme.

When the scheme was launched last year, the average consumption of every household over a one-year period was calculated for entitlement units. However, in cases where a residential unit was newly constructed or vacant for long, the government announced it would be eligible for 53 units, the state’s average consumption plus an additional 10 units.

The discussions then revealed that the government may revise the entitlement units every year and consider the average of the previous year. However, sources in the Energy Department say the government order on the scheme does not include such a revision and there is no such proposal.

“The Government Order (GO) for the scheme did not include any condition on annual revision of the entitlement units. As of now, there is no such proposal,” said Gaurav Gupta, Additional Chief Secretary, Energy Department, told DH.

This will likely disappoint residents who moved into newly built or rented homes in 2023 and were eligible for only 53 units of free power.

Prajwal K, who moved to his newly constructed house at Bhashyam Circle in May 2023, was hoping to reap the benefits of the scheme this year.

“We are a family of four and our electricity consumption goes up to 180 units. I was disappointed when they said that the new constructions will be eligible for only 53 units. I was hoping they would revise it this year so we could reap the benefits since we still use less than 200 units,” he said.

Similar is the case of a techie who moved into a rented house in July 2023. He was surprised to know that owing to low power consumption by the previous tenants, he was now eligible for only 12 units of free power.

“I was shocked when I realised I was eligible only for 12 units of free power since the house we moved into was occupied by a bachelor earlier and he hardly stayed home resulting in low entitlement units for us. Since we moved in July, I was thinking that our new recordings will be used for next year,” said Suhas R, a techie and a resident of Rajajinagar.

Many residents that DH spoke to also said that they had tried to bring down their power consumption over the last year to fit into the free power bracket and are now disappointed that there is no revision of entitled units.

While denying any revision of entitlement units, Gupta also said that the government might consider a change if there was a proposal in this regard.

“If we receive a proposal in this regard, we will analyse and take a call,” he said.