Now, water theft by bypassing meters

BENGALURU: The Bangalore Water Supply and Sewerage Board (BWSSB) has come across a new form of water theft across the city, with people initially taking legal water connections then committing irregularities. Bangalore Metropolitan Task Force (BMTF) will book violators and levy a penalty of Rs 10,000. 

A total of 91 such thefts have been discovered by the BWSSB officials in the last one week. BWSSB Chairman N Jayaram told The New Indian Express, “The water thefts earlier involved illegal water connections, whereby, many individuals would take advantage of one legal connection or the meters at home would be faulty. In the violations we detected last week, the house owners would take legal connection but later attach a pipe to it and use water. As the pipes are not connected to the meter, the usage doesn’t reflect.”

This specific illegality is difficult to detect as one needs to stop the water supply to homes completely and then check the sump. “If the water still continues to flow, then a bypass line connection has been taken,” the chairman added. 

S V Venkatesh, Chief Engineer (Maintenance), West, said that the drive to detect such connections will start within the next two months. “Out of the 5,000 connections we checked, we found 91 irregularities. We have 10.5 lakh water connections across the city and we expect to book many more households for this kind of theft,” he said. 

Though BWSSB officials in different zones are carrying out these checks presently, a separate squad could be constituted shortly. Lakshmi Layout, Vinayaka Nagar, Bilkalli, Madeena Nagar, Agara Village, Bandepalya, Mangammana palya, Kumara Park West are the areas where the thefts have been detected.

Water disruption in West Bengaluru 
Many areas in Western Bengaluru will not have water supply on Wednesday and Thursday. The following areas will be affected: Nagapura, Mahalakshmipuram, Manjunath Nagar, Shivanagar, Mahaganapathi nagar, Shankar Mata, Thimmaiah Road, Basaveshwara Nagar, HBCS, Shakthi Ganapathi Nagar, Kamala Nagar, Kamakshipalya, Sharada Colony, BEML Layout, Vrushabhavathi Nagar, Sannakki Bayalu, Vyalikaval, Karnataka Layout, Kirloskar Colony, Meenakshi Nagar, Sir MV 1 to 9th block, BEL 1st and 2nd stage, Balaji Layout, Mallathahalli, Railway Layout 2nd Stage, BTS Layout, Anjana Nagar, KEB road, Byadarahalli, Rajeev Gandhi Nagar, Agrahara Dasarahalli, KHB 2nd stage, Papaiah Garden, Mahalakshmi Layout, Saraswati Pura, JC Nagar, Geleyara Balaga, Kurubarahalli and surrounding areas of  West Bengaluru.