MCs to pay for lighting streets

Tribune News Service

Jammu, May 24

Facing constant deficit in revenue realisation targets, the Power Development Department (PDD) has decided to charge municipal corporations in capital cities of Jammu and Srinagar for electricity used to light up streets. So far, the PDD bears the energy cost of public lighting, which is a domain of municipal bodies.

Officials said power consumption on account of public lighting is a legitimate charge on the municipal corporations, committees and other local bodies in whose jurisdiction electricity is consumed, but unfortunately there is no realisation on this account. Number of streetlights has shown a phenomenal increase in Jammu city and its surrounding localities. As per the data, there are 29,882 streetlights in the winter capital of state, with most of them installed after 2005, when the last municipal elections were held in Jammu and Kashmir after a gap of 23 years.

“Civic bodies install the streetlights, but there is no mechanism to check the amount of power they consume so that fee is charged. The government has now decided to impose charges on the municipal bodies to improve revenue realisation,” said a PDD official.

The government had fixed Rs 3,508.62 crore worth revenue target for the 2014-15 fiscal, but realisation was only Rs 1,750 crore, which was less than 50 per cent, which exposes the poor working of the department. Government departments, VIPs, illegal drawing and poor implementation of the laws was main reason for the failure to achieve the targets. “The race to install streetlights by civic bodies in Jammu and Srinagar has now become a major area of discord between municipal corporations and the PDD as at places they have been installed without any power agreement,” said an official.