HUBBALLI: Stealing money from temples is now passe. Burglars in Hubballi have now taken a new route — stealing coins from e-toilets. Such incidents have been reported at e-toilets at Unkal lake garden and Indira Gandhi Glass House, where these e-toilets are popular among visitors. These e-toilets were installed in the twin cities under the Smart City project by the Hubballi-Dharwad Municipal Corporation.
The officials are now facing a fresh challenge to ensure the safety of money collected in the box attached to the e-toilets. Following the thefts, the coin collection boxes have been damaged, so, the toilets are now not operational.
An HDMC official pointed out that the coin boxes in e-toilets have slots for `1, `2 and `5 denominations. The corporation clears the boxes after two to three days. Recently, when the team went to collect the money, they were shocked to see that one of the boxes was damaged.
“We conducted a survey of all e-toilets in the city and found that the facility at two places have been damaged. The miscreants used stones to break open the coin boxes and removed the money with the help of forceps. When the box is completely filled, the value of the coins amount to more than `2,000,” the official said.
The official said security personnel at Unkal lake saw some men scaling the compound and running away after the park was closed for visitors at night. Hubballi and Dharwad have at least 15 e-toilets at various places in the city.