Today I received an email from one of our subscriber.

His question is…

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Do we need to pay extra for putting pipe to sump for cauvery connection? This is after approvals

I have recd approvals and they are asking 4k for digging and putting pipe from cauvery pipe line to my house .

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Our house comes under the Municipal department in Bangalore. So mine and the Cauvery connection approval could be a little bit different.

But my guess is that both processes are similar.

Here is what happened to us.

First local waterman came and told me he would do all the office approval and collected ₹10,000 for applying water connection.

This guy didn’t do any work at all…

When we asked about approval status, he always told some story.

So my dad and I went to the office a few times, and they were also telling some stories to come later.

Almost 15+ times we visited the office… always come later kind of response.

Later we got to know for bribes they were doing like this…

So we paid the bribe within a few days bill collector prepared our Tax receipt and Water connection approval and bought it to our house itself.

new Water connection bill from town municipal

New Water connection permission letter from town municipal

Once I received a water connection permission letter from the municipal department, I informed my local waterman (the same guy who collected 10K before). I got permission next what we asked.

He said, ok, digg earth, I will come and lay pipes and give connection.

We dug earth, extended the main water pipeline to near our house by our labourers by taking his permission and updated him to come and connect to our sump.

He arranged a local plumber and directed him to give a connection to our sump.

The plumber gave a connection within 15 minutes and left the spot.

He didn’t ask for extra cash for making this connection because he had already collected ₹10,000 extra from us and didn’t do any office work.

We also didn’t ask for that amount to return back.

If we didn’t pay before, he also could have asked minimum of ₹4,000 to just give a connection.

More, if he does any earthwork as well.

For our first house, another waterman collected ₹11,000 for approval and gave only ₹6,000 Bill.

Remaining ₹5,000? Went to his pocket.

It’s not just us who paid them extra…. For every new connection in my area, they collected an extra amount.

In conclusion, Yes… everywhere it will be collected.

If you are interested in knowing where and all we spent money while building our house, it’s all mentioned in our house construction expenses.