Toothless, BMC makes little progress on water pilferage ……….Viju B & Sukhada Tatke
The BMC cut 3,871 illegal water connections till November last year but only one case has been disposed of in the same period, data provided under the Right To Information Act by the BMC legal department revealed. Since the BMC is not empoweredto prosecute offenders for theft and pilferage, civic officials have to file an FIR in each case at the local magistrate痴 court in whose jurisdiction the crime took place.
Data provided by the BMC痴 legal department shows that till November only four cases were pending with the water department and water theft-related ones comes under the bottom of the number of pending cases. Senior BMC officials from the legal department said, 展e hardly get any cases from the water department though they detected so many illegal connections last year. There is a nexus between slumdwellers, the water mafia, politicians and bureaucrats. It is only after the crisis this year that the water department started taking action,鋳 the official said. RTI activist Milind Mulay who filed a query on this issue said: 典he water department collected Rs 29.43 lakh, 0.02% of the total Rs 15.32 crore recovered by all other departments.鋳
Deputy municipal commissioner Dineshchandra Gondalia said action against illegal connections is taken routinely: 展e act against illegal connections, seizing illegal booster pumps and so on.鋳
But senior officials from the hydraulic department said that till the century-old pipelines are replaced, wastage of water would continue. Water lost through leaks in pipelines account for 20% of the total loss.
The problem of illegal connections was chronic in the eastern suburbs. An average of over 10 illegal connections were cut every day in the city. Illegal connections detected in the island city and western suburbs went down but rose in the eastern suburbs since 2007. The latter痴 six wards have 41.8% of illegal connections.
All eastern wards except M/West (Chembur) saw a rise in illegal connections since 2007. Up to 20.8% of the city痴 illegal connections were in M/East (Mankhurd, Trombay). Another 8% was in L Ward (Kurla). RTI activist Milind Mulay said, 展ater appears to be pilfered from many of these points and sold at a high rate in the slums.鋳
Kurla-based activist Anil Galgali said it is in the newer, post-1995 slums that the number of illegal connections have risen. With the BMC not providing new connections, halfinch pipes are used to take water from the mains. These connections should be made legal or disconnected, he said. Civic activist Simpreet Singh said: 徹ur studies have shown that the slum dwellers pay 30 times more for water than what the BMC charges.鋳
* DRAINED OUT: Slumdwellers steal water from a BMC pipe (file photo top); a leaking pipeline (below)