Chandigarh’s dark spots an open invite to crime

Sandeep Rana

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, November 20

It is not just the Sector 53 road, where a young girl was allegedly gangraped, that remains dark at night. There are several others too as a number of the newly installed LED street lights are non-functional in the city.

This is despite the fact that the local Municipal Corporation has signed a deal to pay a whopping Rs 50 crore to Energy Efficient Services Ltd (EESL), a public sector undertaking, for the job even as people complain of non-functional and less-illuminated street lights.

On its part, the MC claims the work is on. In a random survey by Chandigarh Tribune late this evening, it was found that on many road stretches in the city, the street lights were either dim, non-functional or were turning on and off.

The roads separating Sector 7/8, Sector 15/Panjab University, Sector 61/52, parts of Sector 23, Sector 24 the locality behind Himachal Serai Bhawan, Sector 43-B inner roads, Sector 22 locality behind Aroma Hotel and the road stretch from the Hallo Majra light point to Vikasnagar were among those found to be affected during the random check.

Dark roads not only lead to road accidents but also encourage crime. Like the gang rape reported two days ago allegedly by an auto driver and his two accomplices, the dark road stretch in Sector 53 gave an opportunity to the miscreants to commit the crime and later flee away from there. The dark roads are also one of the main reasons of chain snatching incidents, which have become a headache for cops, who fail to arrest the culprits and have a poor conviction rate in courts.

“Crime is increasing due to dark roads. Secondly, the LED lights have less illumination than the previous ones and are not able to cover the darkness between two adjoining poles,” said Federation of Sectors Welfare Association Chandigarh (FOSWAC) vice-chairman Hitesh Puri.

“The lighting of these LEDs is not to its capacity of 9 watt. If you buy a 9 watt bulb from a Sampark centre/market, it has much more lighting than this. They have invested huge money, it could be some big scandal,” said Anil Kumar Nayyar, Secretary, FOSWAC.

Rakesh Kanojia, president of the Social Welfare Association, Sector 24, said, “Despite LED and mast lights being installed, roads in our area remain dark. We had met the Mayor and requested her to have more street light poles as it is unsafe at night.”

NP Sharma, Chief Engineer, MC, said, “First, we started the process of replacing all ordinary street lights with LEDs. It is almost complete and only dark spots and green belts remain now. After this, we have now started a combing operation to fix connections, repair loose wires and fuse junctions. This is the second stage.”

He said the EESL was the Central Government’s nodal agency for carrying out this project nationally. “We have not paid them yet. As per the MoU, we will start paying them monthly once they ensure 95 per cent of 'burning'.” A company official said the LED lights were OK but the problem was with the wiring. The Mayor was unavailable for comments despite repeated attempts.