CHENNAI: Officials at the Tamil Nadu Generation and Distribution Corporation (TANGEDCO) will be seeking the State government's approval to link power connections to Aadhaar cards. This will help identify those taking advantage of the electricity subsidy by taking multiple connections for a single residence.
Officials of the corporation confirmed to The New Indian Express that they are waiting for the local body polls to end to seek Tamil Nadu's approval.
"The State government has to take a policy decision to link the Aadhaar card with consumers’ numbers. After that, we will prepare a detailed report and submit it to the Tamil Nadu Electricity Regulatory Commission for approval. We also had a meeting with the Electricity minister on the idea. However, we are yet to finalise the plan," a senior official from the IT Wing of TANGEDCO told The New Indian Express.
The corporation spends around Rs 3,500 crore yearly on subsidies.
'Aadhaar linking will weed out fraudulent connections'
The officials hope linking the power connections to Aadhaar can help streamline expenditure on these subsidies. For example, all domestic users enjoy the first 100 units of power for free in every billing cycle. Those consuming less than 500 units are also billed at subsidised rates.
A finance wing official of TANGEDCO said that if the power connections are linked with Aadhaar, then it would be easy to identify those having multiple connections for a single premise and enjoying undue subsidy. The official referred to the Union government linking LPG connections to Aadhaar to reduce expenditure on the subsidy.