Bescom to seek one-month extension to complete Gruha Jyothi survey

With only four days left for the completion of the Gruha Jyothi door-to-door survey, officials of the Bangalore Electricity Supply Company Limited (Bescom) said they would write to the Energy Department seeking an extension of one month. As of August 27, Escoms across Karnataka had verified 68.90% of households. Bescom has completed verification of nearly 65.93% of households so far.

A senior Bescom official said, “The August 31 deadline was set so that the survey could be completed smoothly and at a good pace. Since about 34% of households are yet to be covered, we are confident of completing the exercise within a month.”

When asked about the reasons for the delay in completing the survey, he said, “Our meter readers were supervised by the assistant engineers in their respective jurisdictions. While some houses were locked, others delayed producing the necessary documents. However, despite this, we asked meter readers to visit locked houses three times so that beneficiaries are not left out.”

However, residents across the city have also complained about issues such as a slow server when meter readers arrived at their doorstep for the survey. Shobha, a resident of JC Nagar Main Road, said, “Whenever meter readers came in the morning, the server was slow, and they could not enter my details on the mobile app. Later, they came at 7.30 p.m. to complete the verification. Details of the majority of households in our locality were entered in the late evening when the app worked faster.”

Name change facility

Bescom on Thursday launched a fully digital name-change facility for electricity connections across urban areas in its jurisdiction spanning eight districts. The initiative aims to make Bescom the first power distribution utility in India to fully digitise the ownership transfer process.

Launching the platform, Energy and Tourism Minister K.J. George said the initiative leverages information technology to deliver transparent and quality services directly to consumers, eliminating the need to visit sub-divisional offices. He noted that the service covers consumers with GBA e-Khata mutations as well as property owners with or without an e-PID outside the GBA.

Mr. George also announced plans to extend the paperless facility to rural areas across all eight Bescom districts and to other Escoms in the State in the coming days.

According to details provided by the department, the process was implemented on a pilot basis and has already processed over 31,000 digital name changes, averaging more than 2,000 online transfers a week.

Consumers can submit applications, upload details, execute e-stamping, and complete e-signing directly through the Bescom Web Self-Service (WSS) portal. They are required to pay a processing fee of ₹100 and ₹1,194 towards e-stamp and e-sign charges through the portal. No physical cash payments will be accepted.

Consumers can also download e-signed documents and the official confirmation memorandum (OM) without having to visit Bescom offices.