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Mangaluru : In a sting operation conducted at 2nd Cross, Bendur here, member of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) Dr Deepak D’Souza has video captured tampering of a water meter by a Mangaluru City Corporation (MCC) billing agent at a construction site.

Dr Deepak said that the meter reader who came to issue water bill to his under construction house, offered him ‘help’ stating that the bill had amounted to Rs 21,000 but he could minimize it sharply.

“Realizing it was the right time to frame the culprit and bring the scandal to the limelight, I agreed with the billing agent to tamper the meter and silently videoshot the process,” Dr Deepak said.

According to the doctor, the agent brought down the bill from Rs 21,000 to Rs 6,000 by reversing the meter reading while ensuring that the seal of the metre remained intact. The agent charged as much as Rs 2,500 from him.

When he brought the incident to the notice of the Lokayukta, the Department expressed helplessness stating that the billing has been outsourced to a private agency and that the meter reader was a private employee.

Hence Dr Deepak reportedly approached MCC Commissioner Hephsiba Rani Korlapati. He informed presspersons that he did not get a positive response from her. When contacted his friend who is employed in the Police Department, he is said to have suggested Dr Deepak to bring the incident to the notice of the media.

In this regard, on Thursday, February 12, Dr Deepak, who is also a Professor of Forensic Medicine along with two other AAP volunteers presented the recorded video footage to the media and expressed hope that the news would go viral adding that he would again approach the authorities concerned to take stringent action in the case.

According to Dr Deepak, a few MCC insiders in the Computer Section and the Joint Engineer also have a role to play in the scandal. “If a fraud amounting to Rs 15,000 can be done at a 1,000sqft building during one metre reading, the MCC must certainly be suffering loss in crores of rupees as hundreds of multi-storeyed buildings are on the rise in the city,” he opined.