Team-BHP (https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/)

-   Street Experiences (https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/street-experiences/)

-   -   Theft of Public Property on Indian Roads (https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/street-experiences/148872-theft-public-property-indian-roads.html)

Hi,

"Theft" is a word that alarms us all. Most of us have been victims of some kind of theft in our lives that has affected us in some way or the other.

Sometimes, when we are ourselves the victim of thefts, we make a lot of hue and cry, report it to police or narrate our experience to our near and dears.

Many a times something that has been stolen is recovered but mostly we have to calm ourselves with the sympathy that we get from our near and dears.

However, I have witnessed a different kind of theft on our Indian streets which I am sure most of you would have noticed and may be all of you are aware of such a thing.

Theft of government property is so rampant and blatant on the Indian streets that its solution looks almost impossible. The concerned authorities are least bothered to stop this menace.

Since, it does not affect us directly so we do not bother much, but if we think of it a lot of our money gets wasted that we pay in the form of taxes.

Road railings, tree guards, parts of electric poles are all vulnerable to such theft. The thieves are always on a look out for them.

In the pictures below, I have tried to showcase, how the whole process starts and within a couple of days, these items gets damaged and then extinct. This is from my daily route from office to home and vice versa.

In the below pictures, one can see how the cement railings are erected on the road divider, then a little damage is done and finally the iron is extracted from inside and sold by the thieves.











In the below pictures, the iron railing is seen as erected, then damaged and gradually its gets stolen.


















Then comes the reflectors on the railings, they are not spared either.







Tree guards are also stolen. A lot of money is spent by authorities on erecting them to give the city a greener look.











Electricity Poles are not spared either and you will agree that most of us have learnt to live with these scenes and such things do not affect us anymore. We do come across news where we hear people especially children getting electrocuted.















In the picture below, one cant say with certainty, if the missing bird nest is a theft or omission.

Some more pictures,















This signage was damaged by the winds. However, I am sure its remains must have gone to thieves.

Dear Sir, This is an eye-opener for us. You have captured this theft in NCR-Noida. However, This kind of theft is rampant in every indian state and primarily these equipments are stolen by the drug-addicts who roam at late hours in the night and fund their drug addiction by selling these things.

To further add to the list of public property theft I am adding the bus stop benches which serve as the sleeping bed for the addicts and homeless people and secondly; the tubelights from the hoardings are also easy to steal.

Thanks

AD

Exactly. They can steal any petty item to get drugs. You're quite right. But there's not much we can do about it other than stopping drugs completely.

But there's another 'breed' of people who indulge in such activities. Educated illiterates. Breaking things for fun, kicking punching such items because they are bored or because they are in a protest. Many such idiots damage public property in protests and rallies. I am ashamed to know some people who took proud in breaking bulbs of street lights, damaging grills etc. Sadly, there's not much we can do here. As Mr. Satyendra Garg posted on FB yesterday, "Are we a self-governing society? No."

We can just hope that people gain their senses back soon, and the sad state of our country improves.

The attitude of such illiterate people and anti-social elements regarding our public property is quite infuriating.
I would like to add an incidence which took place a few years back in Mumbai itself. There was a gang of these thieves which went around the city in a truck during night removing those big green direction boards.
When they were questioned regarding the same, they said they were BMC workers carrying out maintenance work.

Quite smart thinking I must say.. :Frustrati

-Bhargav

Ohh yes, its a big big business, stealing Govt. Property and selling off in chor bazaar !!

I have seen these thefts rampant in every city, every street.
The most recent I came across, were manually operated switches, to control signal for pedestrian crossing.

There was one such manually operated signal for pedestrian crossing set up on Bannerghata Road, in front of Shoppers Stop (Bangalore BHPians would know the area). This place is a nightmare as its just after an underpass and vehicles approach this major commercial area at good speed. I drop my wife at this point for her to catch bus to work.

One fine day, I was surprised to see the signal set up. So we searched and found the a pole with a nice looking switch to operate the signal. We tried it out and got moderate response from motorists. Some old timers on this road may not have bothered to stop. But we liked that the signal was red and we could cross the road safely.

2nd day - Went fine.
3rd day - The switch box was broken open and the switch was gone. All that remained were torn wires.

Few days later, may be 2 weeks later, the switch was in place again. Good move by Govt.
And then 1 day later, it was again gone.

All that stands now at this spot are, 2 speed humps placed back to back within 10 metres. So vehicles are bound to slow down here. Best move by Govt. !! clap:

It gets even worse when the mirrors which are placed at hairpin bends to see traffic coming from the other side are stolen. Unfortunately, i don't think there is a practical solution to this, and no one even cares.

Apart from the poles, fences and other property, the most stolen public property in Mumbai is the drainage covers made of CS metal. This offers the greatest value for the theft and there are ready buyers (read scrap metal dealers) for this. The BMC spends crores every year on replenishing the missing drainage covers but they eventually get stolen. There was a drive to replace the metal covers with cement one but even that get stolen.

Most of the wooden fences get stolen a lot esp during Holi for obvious reasons. The missing metal covering for the saplings is another sad story. The mising covers for the electrical covers is the most dangerous of all esp during monsoons. Many a times IMO these thefts are done in consent with the municipal workers.

It's more of vandalism first and then they steal it. I have seen so many instances of the railings have gone missing in a matter of a few weeks of installing it, this in Bangalore. The normal tendency is that people bend/break railings for easier access to cross roads and then eventually we have that random thief trying to steal it.

And this morning en-route office at 5:15am , I saw some dudes in an auto stealing kerb blocks which was to be used for the median near Hebbal.

A few months back I was at Shivajinagar looking for a part for my bike and was surprised to find a "no entry" board lying at one of the shops there.

This is more related to "Theft of public property in Indian Railways" :)

My Mom and Dad used to work for Southern Railways and we stayed in the Company Quarters. Our neighbor who was also working with my parents had to shift to another block within the same campus. During the time they were shifting their goods onto a cargo truck, I saw the First Class Seats that are usually available on long distance trains and the First Class Sliding doors too being loaded. I guess he was underpaid ;-)

There is also organised crime, similar to theft as reported by the OP.

For example, the metal benches which are installed in parks or on pavements for people to sit on. Many of them are removed and installed elsewhere by showing them as additional ones purchased by the municipal authority. But in reality they are just repainted and passed off as new benches. It seems like a small thing, but in the real world it is money being siphoned off.

it could be possible this is also the case with the tree guards

I have seen this kind of theft very often. In Kanchan galli, the local corporator had put up iron benches on the road. Few days later 2-3 benches ended up at the construction site on the same lane with the contractors sitting on them for a smoke! :Frustrati I guess little can be done to stop the menace and this scene will continue on for a many years in India.

As the prices of commodities rise, these things are inevitable in a country like ours - with a large population of poor and under-employed people.

In the United States and parts of Europe, Copper is the chosen metal for theft - because steel scrap is not worth much (in US Dollars). Copper is about 4 times more expensive than Steel/Aluminum etc.

Proof: Do a Google News Search for "Copper Theft".
https://www.google.co.in/search?q=co...+theft&tbm=nws

We even have a Wikipedia article on the increasing trend of metal theft -
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metal_theft

When we the tax payers who fund the government do not hold them accountable are we ever going to wake up and become the conscience of the non tax paying public? No! Never! We are like that only!