BWSSB official among 9 arrested in water meter scam

Police arrested a BWSSB revenue manager and eight others, meter readers among them, in a Rs 7-crore water meter scam.

The agency has ordered a probe into the scam, in which BWSSB officials and workers hired through a third party are believed to be involved.

They collected money from consumers as cash and demand drafts, cheques, and UPI.

Bommanahalli police arrested Nagaveni, a revenue manager at the BWSSB, and eight others, including meter readers and employees of an outsourcing firm.

A senior police officer said: “We arrested Nagaveni based on a complaint filed by Nagaraj A, an assistant executive engineer at the BWSSB. We also arrested Anandaraj, Navodaya Security Centre workers Varadaraj and Kiran Kumar B T, and five others. They had pocketed around Rs 24 lakh.”

Six cases have been registered in the scam. Two cases were registered at the Bommanahalli police station and one at Kodigehalli, JP Nagar, Basavanagudi and another police station. Police expect more cases to be filed.

In all cases, the complainants are BWSSB officials. It has been alleged that some BWSSB staff, its contract employees and those hired through the private agency pocketed the money.

They misused the login credentials (user ID and password) on https://bwsajala.karnataka. gov.in/ to pocket money paid by consumers. They later made false entries, showing the money as being paid to the department’s bank account, and generated receipts.

In the Kodigehalli case, assistant executive engineer Hanumantha Ganti filed a complaint against Sahakaranagar staff — junior assistant Mallikarjun, meter reader Mahantesh Indi, contract employee Shrinivas, assistant Ramappa Madivalar,, and retired assistant executive engineer Narayanaswamy B M.

The Basavanagudi case was filed by assistant executive engineer Sachin Patil, who alleged the involvement of Rajeshwari, a contract employee at the southwest-1 office, and another employee named Kiran Kumar.

Police have served notices on the BWSSB’s other employees and contract staff, as well as employees hired through the outsourcing agency.

Navodaya Security Centre provided the BWSSB with data entry operators, assistants and other workers.