With BMC not filing reports, water mafia growing unchecked: Police

The police attribute “lack of willingness” on the part of the BMC for ‘untouched’ growth of the water thieves and the water mafia. “Given the water scarcity in the city and the state, water theft is a major concern. These suspects are habitual offenders but we cannot take suo motu action in these matters,” said a senior police officer.

[related-post]

Dhananjay Kulkarni, Deputy Commissioner of Police (Crime) and spokesperson for the Mumbai Police, said there is no clear count of water theft cases because there is no specific category under which these crimes can be recorded.

“Earlier, I was the zonal DCP in charge of areas such as Dharavi and Shahu Nagar, which are heavy slum pockets. In my two-and-a-half year stint, I believe there were hardly two or three cases where we took action against people who stole water from the BMC, based on the complaints,” said Kulkarni.

Senior BMC officials admitted that they avoid registering FIRs as it is “time consuming”.

“We are not interested in investigating, but only in fixing the leaks as we need to save the water. Registering an FIR is a time-consuming process. Our main intention is to stop leakages and not to follow up on every probe,” said a senior BMC official.

A senior BMC engineer admitted that while the permanent remedy is to weld the “tapped points”, officials usually nail wooden planks to the leaking points, owing to lack of staff to repair the exposures.

The official further claimed that 2016 has seen the highest number of such “leakages” being found and plugged, attributing it to the scarcity of water.

“Earlier, we used to get this water by the bucket, but now the water pipe is used to fill every utensil or bucket we want to store water in.

We pay Rs 300 per month in cash for this service,” said a labourer who resides in Sion and benefits from one such illegally tapped pipe.

At Ambujwadi, a slum in Malad, residents get water from buckets that are carried on cycles every morning.

“This area has not had a water pipeline for the past two decades. The water mafia here has men who walk with their cycles for about 3 km to Gate no 1 in Malvani to get water for us and we buy it off them. The mafia sources the water illegally from another pipeline,” said a 37-year-old resident.

Sushil Kamble, senior police inspector of Wadala TT, said that he and his superiors are contemplating registering cases of water theft under Essential Commodities Act.

“So far, property theft under the IPC and certain section of the BMC Act are the usual charges against these accused when we receive complaints from the BMC, but we are considering evoking other charges in order to curb the matter,” Kamble said.

Municipal Commissioner Ajoy Mehta did not respond to calls and messages.

WATCH INDIAN EXPRESS VIDEOS HERE