MC plans smart LED street lights with distress button

Rajinder Nagarkoti

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, January 16

If the Chandigarh Municipal Corporation has its way, the city will soon have smart LED street lights with a distress button, which can be pressed by anyone in trouble to protect himself or herself from robbers, snatchers and eve-teasers.

Officials of the MC and three private companies today gave a presentation on the installation of smart LED lights in place of the existing street lights before UT Administrator VP Singh Badnore.

A senior MC official said they told company representatives that they wanted smart LED lights with features such as a distress button for emergencies, light dimming feature between midnight and 4 am when there is less movement on roads and an intelligent light monitoring system.

In their proposal, the companies submitted that they would provide features such as energy savers, air pollution-monitoring gadgets, WiFi routers and a road information display system in these.

The companies submitted that they would come out with a fresh proposal after incorporating the points raised by the MC in their proposal.

A senior official of the UT Administration said after the presentation, the Administrator gave in-principle go-ahead for the smart LED light project and directed the officials concerned to ensure the world’s best facilities in the project.

There are around 52,000 street lights in the city, which will be replaced under the ambitious Smart City project of the Centre. The project will be given to an agency selected through the tender process and around Rs 60 crore will be spent on it, which will have a number of features, including automatic functioning of street lights and a centralised system.

Distress button to be linked to PCR

On the distress button facility, a senior MC official said by pressing the button, 50 to 100 street lights in the nearby area would start blinking, which would alert residents that “somebody is in trouble”. Besides, the button would be linked to the UT Police Control Room, which would immediately send a police team to the location. Every smart pole would be controlled by a centralised server.