KarnatakaOne Centres besieged by power consumers
Mysore/Mysuru: As the Karnataka Government last Sunday opened the registration for free electricity scheme (officially Gruha Jyothi), the registration portal went kaput and the situation continued even for the third day today, leaving many disheartened.
The server of Seva Sindhu portal continues to play truant, holding up the process of filing applications and this kept hundreds of people waiting at most of KarnatakaOne, GramaOne and MysoreOne Centres and the offices of Chamundeshwari Electricity Supply Corporation (CESC).
Many had to return home disappointed as the web portal kept crashing throughout the day. Cops, including women Police, have been deployed to control the agitated crowd in anticipation of trouble. Many people who returned home came back to the submission centres, only to be greeted by ‘Server down’ reply.
‘Gruha Jyothi’ is one of the five pre-poll guarantees announced by the Congress Government and it provides free 200 units of power to every household. Armed with RR Number, previous electricity bills, landlord-tenant agreements, Aadhaar cards and the RR Number-linked mobile numbers, consumers visited KarnatakaOne and other centres at CESC in the city, only to receive the same old reply to wait for some time for the portal to open, with the speed of server going down due to overload.
According to consumers, though the portal opens for a few seconds, it starts buffering again, thus prolonging the wait, with no sight of solution. Ever since the launch of the process of submitting the applications on Sunday (June 18), the server problem has kept the eager consumers from cashing-in on the benefits.
The documents are mandatory so that they are scanned and uploaded through a dedicated software on the Seva Sindhu portal. Those who are aware of the technology are using laptops, computer systems and smartphones to submit their applications.
Others are thronging the centres to apply for the scheme at six KarnatakaOne Centres in the city — near the Railway Gate in Jayanagar; opposite Vidyavardhaka Law College on Seshadri Iyer Road; near Water Tank in Gokulam; opposite Shanthala School in Siddarthanagar; opposite Guru Hotel in Nazarbad and Mysuru Urban Development Authority (MUDA) complex in Ramakrishnanagar.
‘Software made in haste’
A cyber cafe owner expressed doubts over the efficacy of the software and the Seva Sindhu portal to upload the Gruha Jyothi applications, that seems to have been developed in a hurry.
“Though the application page opens, we can’t fill in the details and it shows the lag or the lapse in the development of the software. Though the situation remains the same across Mysuru district, it is said that the process of submitting the applications online is smooth in Bengaluru,” he said.
This post was published on June 20, 2023 7:45 pm