BESCOM

In July'09, one year before former BBMP Commissioner Bharat Lal Meena left to head the BDA, he issued an order to shutdown the Technical Vigilance Cell (TVC) call centre. The centre was available for citizens in Bengaluru to blow the whistle on illegally constructed buildings (also called plan sanction violations, in government parlance).  BBMP went ahead and shut it down. [Click on Image to enlarge]. Former BBMP Commissioner Bharat Lal Meena’s order stating that the call centre will be shut down on July 12th 2009. This week, Meena denied issuing the order itself and claimed the call centre was functioning…

After more than a week of erratic power cuts, BESCOM now says things will slowly get back to normal. "Everything is stabilised", says H Nagesh, Director (Technical), BESCOM. Nagesh says that load-shedding will now be scheduled. BESCOM officials say domestic feeders will face three-hour power cuts daily. Pic: Vaishnavi Vittal To know when you are likely to loose power during the day and how many times, read the tables in this article..  For domestic feeders, there will three hours of power cuts daily,  one hour per cut, in three time windows: 6 AM to 10 AM, 10 AM to 2…

Process for name change in electricity bill (Note: A khata not required) 1. Get NOC (No objection certificate) from your Builder's Office on their letter head. This should indicate that builder has no objection for name change on electricity bill. 2. Get two forms (one AEH form and other indemnity bond form). Forms can be obtained from BESCOM offices or should be available in any stationery shop near BESCOM offices. Document is known as 'Name Transfer Document' and entire set of Indemnity Bond + Form + NOC format + File can be obtained from BESCOM office for Rs 300 or…

JP Nagar Citizens Association (JPNCA) had their Annual General Body meeting on June 5th 2010 at VET School. All the members wanted more details on Rain Water Harvesting. They wanted specific details like: they have been asked to dig earth 12 feet deep and sink rings. What is the next step? Also, they have been told it would cost about Rs 30,000. This  is a heavy investment, particularly for senior citizens.Members requested JPNCA to work  for some incentive from BWSSB similar to Solar Heating installation from BESCOM. They also pointed out the short supply of Pop-up-filter and suppliers resorting to…

To the casual observer, power cuts in the city have been erratic and without warning, however, BESCOM officials say these are very much scheduled.Three months ago, on February 25th 2010, BESCOM issued a notification on when there will be power cuts for domestic, commercial and industrial feeders. This was in view of the upcoming summer season. The notification had said that there will be two hours of power cuts everyday in batches – one hour in the morning and one hour in the afternoon. For example, power is cut off in an area between 7 and 8 am in the…

On April 21st late afternoon, there was a very heavy downpour with hailstorm and very gusty winds. On my way home at Vijayanagar at about 5.30 pm, while it was still raining, I found the skyline near my home looking different I looked up to see a few trees were broken in the middle and fallen over houses.Right in front of my house, two trees had fallen. On the main road behind, I found eight electric poles and three trees had fallen on 11 KVA power lines. This caused the complete stretch of electric poles and trees fall flat on…

The BBMP council is finally in place, but the BBMP is not the only agency responsible for urban governance in Bangalore. There are many para-statals like BDA, BMRDA, BWSSB, BMTC responsible for performing the many civic functions of the city.  There is a clear need for a citizen to understand the functional differences between these statutory agencies to deal with issues pragmatically. The City Corporation The BBMP (meaning Greater Bangalore City Corporation) is the Municipal Corporation which is responsible for the overall administration of the city of Bangalore. The BBMP was officially formed in January 2007 by merging the 100…

For years now, Bangaloreans have gotten accustomed to seeing dug up roads across the city. Furthermore, one doesn’t know who has dug it up or why and when it is likely to be closed. And then traffic suffers. The traffic police are clueless about the roadwork and are then forced to divert traffic."Sometimes we don't even know who has dug up the road", points out Praveen Sood, Additional Commissioner of Police (Traffic).  Nothing new in namma Bengaluru. Coordination, or the lack of it has always been a challenge for many local authorities - BBMP, BTP, BWSSB, BDA, BMTC, and so…

"No power cuts for Bangalore", says H Nagesh, Director Technical, Bangalore Electricity Supply Company (BESCOM). The rains towards the end of July have helped increase the water levels of the reservors resulting in increase hydel power generation. He also sounded cautious about the coming weeks. "Presently the load shedding is stopped for Bangalore alone but if the rains continue in this way there might not be any need for power cuts throughout the state. But if there is irregular rainfall then scheduled power cuts will be implemented", he says. Last month, Bangaloreans all over were experiencing severe power cuts. Karnataka…