Install LED lights at the earliest, civic body told

Tribune News Service

Bathinda, Janaury 20

The Local Bodies Department has asked the civic body to install LED lights in the city at the earliest. The department has also asked the MC to submit a report in this regard.

While meeting MC officials, Amardeep Singh Dhaliwal, chief engineer of the Local Bodies Department, passed the instructions.

The project to install 25,000 LED street lights in the city has been hanging fire for more than a year.

The Municipal Corporation (MC), Bathinda, has revised the project thrice in the past. Last year, the government wrote to the MC stating that it was mandatory to replace all street lights with LED lights in the city.

In December 2016, Energy Efficiency Services Limited (EESL) had conducted a survey and submitted a report to the MC. The company had estimated that the civic body would have to spend Rs 5.18 crore to replace 25,684 street lights with LED lights.

The EESL is an agency of the Union Ministry of Power and as per the proposed agreement, the company would have looked after the LED lights, including their maintenance, for seven years.

The civic body would have to pay only the monthly electricity bill of LED lights and it would have been less than 50 per cent as compared to the current bill. Seeing huge expenditure, the MC had turned down the project.

Later, the civic body had roped in another company, PPK Global, which offered to install 27 LED lights on a trial basis. Before the Assembly elections, LED lights were installed on a trial basis on the Mall road.

The MC had also planned to install LED lights on chowks and main roads of the city, for which it had planned to float a tender of Rs 25 lakh. But due to the code of conduct, the project had failed to take off.

Thought the project was approved at the General House meeting held in September last year, the work on it is yet to start. Now, with Local Bodies Department directions, it is expected that LED lights will be installed in the city.

Mayor Balwant Rai Nath said, “We are already working on the project. Now, the work will be speed up. Soon, LED lights will be installed in the city.”