Officials of the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation carrying out an anti-encroachment drive on Friday were stunned when they found a tank concealed inside a house to store stolen water. The chance discovery was made at Surat Street, Masjid Bunder. The illegality was going on for a long time, they said.
B-ward officials from said Surat Street has a huge slum pocket and a BMC water pipeline passes through the area and that they had been alerted that the locals were pilfering water from the pipeline. However, they had no idea about the scale of the water theft, they said.
"During our drive, we came across a one-story structure in which a concrete water tank had been built. We found a connection between the main pipeline and the tank," said an official.
The tank could store nearly 40,000 litres of water, equivalent to water carried by four tankers, said officials. The BMC has approached the police to register a case. "Those in the house fled after seeing our men," said an official.
Considering that the thieves had access to a BMC pipeline, they had continuous water supply. The water was sold out to private tan at about Rs 600 per tanker. This meant those involved made thousands a rupees a day from the stolen water.
Udaykumar Shirrkar, assistant municipal commissioner of B ward said the slum pocket come up on Bombay Port Trust land. "Most of the structures are illegal. We had received several complaints about water pilferage. We seized 13 pumps that had been attached to the water pipeline. We have now demolished the illegal tank,"
