Gruha Jyothi Scheme (Karnataka)

What is the Gruha Jyothi scheme?

Gruha Jyothi is the free electricity guarantee of the Government of Karnataka, administered by the Energy Department and delivered through the state's electricity supply companies. Gruha Jyothi gives a registered domestic household up to 200 units of free electricity every month, and has been in force since 1 July 2023. The Kannada name Gruhajyothi Yojane appears on most official notices and on the Seva Sindhu portal.

Gruha Jyothi is not a flat 200-unit giveaway. According to the Energy Department, the free quota for an existing connection is that installation's average monthly consumption during 2022-23, plus 10 per cent, subject to the 200-unit ceiling. A household that averaged 90 units in 2022-23 therefore gets 99 free units, not 200. The design deliberately rewards existing frugal usage rather than encouraging consumption to rise to the cap.

The state pays the distribution companies a subsidy in place of the foregone tariff. The Energy Department has recorded roughly Rs 28,760 crore of subsidy released to the electricity supply companies for the period from August 2023 to July 2026, and around 1.64 crore consumers registered under the scheme.

Who is eligible for Gruha Jyothi?

You can register if:

• You are a domestic electricity consumer in Karnataka, supplied by BESCOM, MESCOM, HESCOM, GESCOM, CESC or the Hukkeri Rural Electric Cooperative Society.
• The installation is a domestic connection, whether the premises are owned or rented.
• You hold an Aadhaar number that is not already linked to another live Gruha Jyothi installation.
• You know the account ID or RR number of the connection you live on.

You cannot apply, or are not eligible, if:

• The connection is commercial, industrial, agricultural or temporary. Gruha Jyothi is confined to domestic use.
• You want free units on a second connection, one Aadhaar can support only one live registration, so a household cannot claim on both a town flat and a village house at the same time.
• The previous occupant has not de-linked their Aadhaar from the installation. The registration will fail until that de-linking is done.
• The connection is in arrears or disconnected. A live, billed domestic installation is the basis of the entitlement.
• You are a domestic consumer running a shop or business on the same meter, the benefit can be withdrawn if inspection shows non-domestic use.

There is no income test, no caste condition and no ration-card requirement for Gruha Jyothi. Karnataka domicile and a domestic connection are the substance of the eligibility.

How many free units will I actually get?

The 58-unit floor is the important protection here: without it, a new connection with no consumption history would have had no basis on which to calculate an average. The February 2024 revision extended the same 58-unit floor to very low consumers who would otherwise have received a tiny entitlement.

The 200-unit ceiling is absolute. A household that averaged 260 units in 2022-23 does not get 286 free units. It gets 200, and pays for the rest.

What documents are required for Gruha Jyothi?

How to apply for Gruha Jyothi online

1. Open the Karnataka guarantee schemes portal at sevasindhugs.karnataka.gov.in and choose the Gruha Jyothi service.
2. Select your electricity supply company — BESCOM, MESCOM, HESCOM, GESCOM or CESC, and enter the account ID or RR number exactly as it appears on your bill.
3. Confirm the consumer details the portal pulls up. Check the name, address and installation type before continuing; a mismatch here is the commonest cause of a failed registration.
4. Enter your Aadhaar number and the mobile number linked to it, then submit the OTP received to complete Aadhaar authentication.
5. Declare whether the premises are owned or rented, and submit the application.
6. Save the acknowledgement number shown on screen. The free-unit entitlement takes effect from the billing cycle after approval, not retrospectively.

How to apply for Gruha Jyothi offline

1. Visit a Grama One centre in a rural area, or a Karnataka One, Bangalore One or Bapuji Seva Kendra centre in a town or city.
2. Carry your latest electricity bill, Aadhaar card and the Aadhaar-linked mobile phone. The operator will need the OTP.
3. Ask the operator to file the Gruha Jyothi registration on Seva Sindhu on your behalf.
4. Collect the printed acknowledgement carrying the application number before you leave.

Registration can also be filed at the local ESCOM sub-division office in many districts, and through the state's Janaservaka doorstep service in the areas where it operates.

How to de-link and re-link when you move house

Gruha Jyothi is linked to a specific installation, so shifting home breaks the link. The Energy Department introduced an online D-Link facility in February 2024 precisely because most beneficiaries live in rented premises.

1. Open the de-linking option on the Seva Sindhu guarantee portal.
2. Enter the Aadhaar number currently linked to the old installation.
3. Enter the OTP sent to the Aadhaar-linked mobile number and confirm the de-link.
4. File a fresh Gruha Jyothi registration with the new account ID at your new address.

De-linking and re-linking both work across all state ESCOMs, and both are free.

How do I check my Gruha Jyothi status?

• Use the application status option on sevasindhugs.karnataka.gov.in with your acknowledgement number.
• Check the monthly bill itself. Once the benefit is active, the bill shows the sanctioned free units and the amount adjusted against them, with a net payable of zero when you stay inside the quota.
• Log in to your ESCOM consumer portal: BESCOM, MESCOM and the others all publish consumption history against the account ID.

Why Gruha Jyothi bills still show an amount

• Consumption crossed the sanctioned free units for that month. Karnataka bills the full month's consumption when the limit is breached, so exceeding the quota by a few units costs the entire month's benefit.
• Registration filed mid-cycle, so the benefit begins from the next billing month.
• Aadhaar still linked to a previous installation, usually after a house move where the earlier occupant never de-linked.
• Wrong account ID entered, linking the benefit to a neighbour's or a landlord's meter.
• Connection classified as non-domestic in ESCOM records, which needs a tariff category correction at the sub-division office.
• Sanctioned quota is lower than expected because the 2022-23 average for that installation was low. Where the installation genuinely has no full-year data, the 58-unit floor should apply; raise it with the ESCOM if it has not.

Where to get help with Gruha Jyothi

• Guarantee schemes call centre: 1902, listed on sevasindhu.karnataka.gov.in.
• Your ESCOM's own consumer helpline and sub-division office for meter, tariff-category and billing disputes, which the Seva Sindhu helpline cannot fix.
• Grama One, Karnataka One and Bangalore One centres for assisted registration, de-linking and status checks.
• Energy Department, Government of Karnataka, at energy.karnataka.gov.in, for scheme orders and policy clarifications.

Gruha Jyothi registration costs nothing. No agent can charge a fee to "sanction" your free units, and no official will ask you for your Aadhaar OTP over the phone.

Common reasons a Gruha Jyothi registration is rejected or fails

The Seva Sindhu portal rejects a registration outright, or accepts it but never sanctions free units, for a specific set of reasons. Most of these are fixable without a fresh application.

• Account ID or RR number does not match the Aadhaar-held address. If the name or premises on the ESCOM record differs from what the applicant enters, the portal flags a mismatch and will not proceed. The fix is to correct the spelling or address on the ESCOM record first, at the sub-division office, then retry registration with the exact details from the current bill.

• Aadhaar is already linked to another live installation. Since one Aadhaar can carry only one active Gruha Jyothi registration, a second attempt on a different account ID is rejected. This is common when a family owns a village house and a rented town flat, or when someone forgets they already registered at a previous address. The remedy is to de-link the old installation on the Seva Sindhu portal before registering the new one.

• The previous occupant's Aadhaar is still linked to the meter. Anyone moving into a rented flat or a resale house often finds the meter already carries a stranger's registration. The new occupant cannot register until that link is removed, and removing it requires the previous occupant's Aadhaar and OTP, which a new tenant rarely has. In practice this needs a visit to the ESCOM sub-division office with the rent agreement or sale deed so the office can process the de-link administratively.

• The connection is classified as non-domestic in ESCOM billing records, even if the premises are used purely as a residence. A shop-cum-residence, or a house billed under a general or commercial tariff by mistake, will be rejected because Gruha Jyothi applies only to the domestic category. The applicant has to get the tariff category corrected at the ESCOM office before Seva Sindhu will accept the registration.

• Mobile number entered does not match the number seeded against that Aadhaar, so the OTP never arrives or fails validation. Updating the mobile number with UIDAI first, and allowing a few days for it to reflect, resolves this.

• Connection is disconnected or carries unpaid arrears. A meter that is not actively billed cannot be registered, since the free-unit entitlement is applied against a live bill. Clearing dues and getting the supply reconnected is a precondition, not something Seva Sindhu can work around.

• Application submitted but never confirmed with OTP. A registration left half-filled, where the account and Aadhaar details were entered but the OTP step was abandoned, does not count as filed. There is no partial-save credit for this: the applicant has to start the registration again from the first step.

None of these failures require paying anyone. Where the fix depends on the ESCOM's own records, such as tariff category or a stale occupant link, the sub-division office is the only place that can correct it, since the guarantee schemes helpline (1902) only handles Seva Sindhu portal issues and not ESCOM billing records.