One crore consumers linked Aadhaar with power connections

CHENNAI: As the state government has mandated linking of Aadhaar with their electricity service connections, more than one crore consumers have linked their Aadhaar till Thursday morning.

Electricity minister V Senthilbalaji said that of the 2.66 crore consumers in the state, more than 1.03 crore consumers have linked their Aadhaar details. "Around 51 lakh consumers linked their Aadhar using online mode and 52 lakh consumers used special camps. Consumers can link Aadhar and service connections till the end of this month, " he added.

Special camps are being conducted at 15 places, including commercial complexes and secretariat, in Chennai. "The department is ready to conduct more special camps if required. Decision will be taken to extend the special camps after consultation with the chief minister. Except on December 25, the special camps will be conducted on all days, " he said.

Explaining the rationale behind the decision to link Aadhaar, Senthilbalaji said that the department has doubled the income from selling ash and interest rate for Rs. 6,600 Crore loan has been reduced to 10 per cent from 13 per cent. This has reduced the interest amount by Rs. 84 Crore a year.

"In continuation with such measures, a decision has been taken to link Aadhar and service connections. Public, businesses and entrepreneurs need not to worry about the move, " he said.

Earlier, the minister assured that the move is only to collect consumer data and said there were only 1.25 crore consumer data till last year. Now it has gone up to three crore consumers. The data are important to reduce line loss.