A year after launching the pilot smart manhole cover project, which found itself in the doldrums owing to technical issues, BMC is eyeing to resurrect the project with the civic body appointing agencies to install smart sensors over manhole covers in B ward’s Sandhurst Road and D ward’s Grant Road on a trial basis.
This comes in the wake of the rising manhole cover thefts which has seen an exponential rise since the outbreak of pandemic. chamber cover and frame
Data obtained by The Indian Express shows that in 2023, Mumbai saw 791 cases of manhole thefts as against 836 cases in 2022, significantly higher than the previous years — 564 cases in 2021, 458 in 2020 and 386 in 2019.
Mumbai lost an average of over two manhole covers to theft daily in 2023.
It was the tragic death of Dr Deepak Amrapurkar in 2018—who slipped into a manhole while wading through the rain water and whose body was recovered nearly two days later in Worli—that gave a whiff of malady surrounding the stolen covers. In the wake of Amrapurkar’s death, the Bombay HC directed the civic body to devise a uniform mechanism to redress citizens’ grievances related to bad roads and potholes.
Who is stealing manhole covers?
“In most cases, the thefts are done by petty thieves and miscreants looking to make a quick buck. Since cast iron material is valuable, anti-social elements who steal the covers sell them off in scrap market,” said a senior BMC official. Covers fetch anywhere from `1,000 to Rs 1,200.
According to civic activists, cast iron — remoulded for reuse — is often bought at a rate of Rs 20-32/kg. “Often, resale value can also be as low as Rs 200 because since the covers are heavy to lift, vagrants are often unable to remove the whole thing and just run away with broken pieces of the cover,” said an official.
There are three primary types of covers: circular, rectangular and scrapper, a combination of two rectangular covers. The circular ones cost around Rs 8,000, rectangular ones cost Rs 10,000 – Rs 15,000 and scrapper cost range to Rs 35,000.
Most thefts, according to officials, emerge in the internal swathes of the city which bear a deserted look during the night. Civic data showed that in 2023, the maximum number of thefts were reported in the K/West (Andheri, Juhu, Versova) ward where 91 covers were replaced.
“Unlike railway items which come with the Railways insignia, most manhole covers don’t have any symbol, which makes them untraceable to the source and scrap dealers readily purchase them,” said an official.
A few years ago, for instance, BMC came up with the idea of installing metal chains, tying the cover to the sewage drain. Officials noticed thieves not only broke the covers but also steal the chains. “Considering the worth of cast iron, we also started manufacturing and placing FRP manholes, which have much less resale value. We noticed the miscreants — in their attempt to steal and sell — would end up breaking the cover and even steal the rod handles installed to lift the covers for repair works,” said an officer.
The BMC also tried replacing the cast iron material with ductile iron covers, which being difficult to remould do not hold significant resale value. The official said, “Since ductile iron resembles cast iron, a thief would fail to see the difference and try to steal it anyway.”
As per Bombay HC directives, the BMC started installing protective grills across the city’s flood-prone areas, to reduce the risk of people falling into the drains, with 1,900 manholes covered until last year. However, in 2023, the HC pulled up the BMC for failing to install protective grills over all 74,000 covers in the city, questioning why only 2.5% of the covers had been covered in five years. The HC directed the BMC to install permanent grills at all manholes ahead of monsoon 2024. “We have managed to cover nearly 99% of manholes with protective grills and the key idea is to ensure that even if there is a stolen cover case, at least nobody would fall inside,” said a senior official.
Meanwhile, last year, BMC had launched a ‘smart manhole project’ across 14 locations of the city, a first-of-its-kind initiative in the country, wherein sensors were installed over the covers. If moved, sensors were slated to ring alarms and send alerts to a control room.
The project, however, failed to take off after the mechanism faced technical challenges. The contract of the agency who had been roped in to implement the pilot project was terminated even as the search for a better technology remained afoot.
Now, the BMC is eyeing to once again implement the smart manhole sensors at two locations in B ward’s Sandhurst road and D ward’s Grant Road.
Speaking to The Indian Express, a senior official said, “Some vendors are expressing their willingness to make similar products using the latest technology which may be reliable and cost effective. While the final prototype is yet to be readied, we may try out the technology at B ward and D ward.”
Maintaining that the plan is at a preliminary stage, he said, “If we find that our past problems are resolved and the solution is feasible at low cost, we may implement the project on a pilot basis in some locations.”
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