Articles by Gautam Kamath

(Part 1 covered the components of BESCOM bill, tariff structure and sanction loads. Part 2 delves into electrical system maintenance) With the adoption of electric vehicles, owners are tapping into their existing meters to charge their vehicles, leading to electrical mishaps. If you need to connect a 3.3 kw/7.2kw EV charger, your sanctioned load needs to be enhanced. This leads to cable/wire, MCB (miniature circuit breaker) and RCCB (residual current circuit breaker) replacement, possibly the energy meter too may need to be replaced.  Overall, if every household enhances sanction load, this leads to constant tripping of the transformer and short…

This year, Bengaluru recorded its second hottest summer day in 50 years, with temperatures touching 40°C in some parts. As a result, the demand for air conditioners (ACs) has skyrocketed. People have purchased multiple ACs without actually checking their sanctioned loads, this has put additional load on Bangalore Electricity Supply Company Limited (BESCOM) power. According to news reports, close to 11 lakh consumers have been penalised by BESCOM for exceeding the sanctioned voltage. Here is a two-part explainer series about how the BESCOM bill is structured and how to calculate the sanction load. Components of an electricity bill Meter: Our…

On April 25th, commuters, residing along Kanakapura Road (KPR) between the Outer Ring Road (ORR) and NICE road junction, were in for a rude shock while traveling to their offices inside the city. The traffic police closed the right turn from KPR to ORR at Sarakki signal. Commuters had to go straight towards BSK TTMC, drive through BSK vegetable market, and take a right turn into 9th Cross, in front of SNN Raj Spiritua to go towards Jayadeva/Silk Board/BG Road. This change in route increased travel time by 20 minutes; 60% of the traffic on KPR, which used to take…

For the record, Gubbalala Lake, located in Raghavendra Layout close to Vajarahalli Metro Station, is an eight-acre 10 gunta waterbody. In reality, it occupies just four acres and 20 gunta. It is suspected that about two acres of the lake’s land have been encroached upon. The lake has four inlets and one outlet, with a walkway length of 810 meters and a main bund length of 160 metres. The catchment area is about two square kms. The lake is situated in the 110 villages scheme/areas of BWSSB (BBMP vide a notification in the year 2008 acquired gram panchayats with 110…

Namma Metro (BMRCL), after a long delay, extended the Green Line services beyond Yelachenahalli station to Silk Institute station, with additional five stops inaugurated on January 14 2021. But the new stations are not friendly to senior citizens and persons with disabilities. The metro stations have entry/exit gates on the east and west sides. For commuters on the west side, there is only one upward escalator to reach the concourse (ticketing area). However, after alighting from the concourse they have to walk down the steps (numbering about 35) to reach ground level. Recently, I watched two senior citizens struggling to…

As a first-time apartment buyer in Bengaluru, in 2016, I heard of many instances of builders/developers simply walking away without creating/forming an "Owners' Association" and handing over the apartment's assets in a systematic way for various reasons, including The lack of bandwidth with the builder to create/form an ad hoc-committee of the Owners' Association and take them through the association formation and registration The extent of deviation from "sanctioned plan" to "as constructed" exceeding 5% (allowed deviation)The builder's desire to retain control of the property and sometimes even plans to add additional built-up area. Improper calculation of undivided share (UDS)…