LED lights project fails to take off

Tribune News Service

Bathinda, August 10

The civic body’s ambitious project of installing 25,000 LED streetlights has failed to get any bidder, due to which the project has failed to take off till date.

It is learnt that MCB’s sub-committee members had visited Mohali a few months ago to study about the LED lights installed there and after coming back they had given their consent to the project. Later, a tender was floated, but no one showed any interest.

Senior Deputy Mayor Tarsem Goyal said, “The MCB had floated a tender for LED lights, but nobody expressed interest. We have written to the state department officials to make the companies that have installed LED lights in other cities to work in Bathinda. We will again float the tender in the coming days.”

The Municipal Corporation of Bathinda has revised the project thrice in the past.

Earlier, the MCB had to issue the tender for the project but it was not opened in January 2017 as the poll code of conduct was enforced in the state.

The MCB was to open the tender after the poll code on March 18, 2017, but the new government issued instructions to stop allotting any new work or project.

The civic body had installed LED lights on trial basis on the Mall Road and it was gearing up to upgrade the whole lighting system in the city.

A separate electricity meter has been installed on the Mall Road to compare electricity consumption of streetlights and LED lights.

The electricity bill of street lights in the city comes to around Rs 40 lakh per month. In order to reduce the bill, the MCB had planned to replace streetlights with LED lights at a cost of Rs 25 lakh.

Initially, a survey was conducted by the Energy Efficiency Services Limited (EESL). The company had told the MCB that to replace 25,684 streetlights with LEDs it would have to spend Rs 5.18 crore.

The EESL is an agency of the Union Ministry of Power, which was supposed to look after the LED lights, including maintenance, for seven years as per the proposed agreement.

Later, the MCB finance and contract committee cancelled it claiming that its cost was high and the civic body would look for some other alternative. Later, another company, PPK Global, offered to install 27 LED lights on trial basis.

At present, sodium lamps, tube-lights and metal-halide lamps are installed in various areas of the city and these are supposed to be replaced with LED lights.

Project revised thrice

• It is learnt that MCB’s sub-committee members had visited Mohali a few months ago to study about the LED lights installed there. 
• The Municipal Corporation of Bathinda has revised the project thrice in the past.
• Earlier, the MCB had to issue the tender for the project but it was not opened in January 2017 as the poll code of conduct was enforced in the state.
• The civic body had installed LED lights on trial basis on the Mall Road and it was gearing up to upgrade the whole lighting system in the city.
• A separate electricity meter has been installed on the Mall Road to compare electricity consumption of streetlights and LED lights