MC House meets on Monday to light up ‘dark spots’ in Jalandhar

Aakanksha N Bhardwaj

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Jalandhar, June 17

It is for the first time that a special meeting on a particular project is going to be held by the Municipal Corporation. Failure of LED project was one of the most talked about issues at the General House meeting that was held last week at Red Cross Bhawan. When every councillor started raising the same issue, Mayor Jagdish Raja decided that a special meeting would be held on the same, where focus would remain on LED lights.

A prior meeting in this regard was held on Thursday, i.e. June 16, wherein certain questions related to the project were asked to the in-charge of LED street lights, but it is reported that he could not give ‘satisfactory’ reply. There is an environment of mistrust among people and councillors regarding the project.

The meeting will be held on June 20 and a letter in this regard has also been released stating that there was a strong criticism among the people and councillors that no satisfactory answers were being given and no information was being provided to them regarding this important project. A detailed report would be sought at the meeting.

Mandeep Kaur Multani, chairman of Street light Adhoc Committee, is the one who has been taking up the matter since long. In last one year, she held several meetings (officially and unofficially) in which she asked for answers on how many LEDs were installed in actual and why nothing was being done to end ‘dark spots’ in the city. Dark spots are the areas where there is a need to install the lights, but till now, no work has been made to address the issue.

“There is a WhatsApp group where people send their complaints. I used to forward them to the street light wing of the MC so that some field officer goes and looks into the matter. Without even going, they would declare the matter as resolved. This is cheating, but who cares. I don’t think any complaint was ever looked after seriously,” the chairman of the committee said.

72,000 LED street lights installed in city, claims firm

• As per the claims of the company, above 72,000 street lights have been installed in all 80 wards in the city, while councillors said this was a lie and they needed a proof
• Mayor Jagdish Raja said: “The project was given to the company in August, 2020, and it was bound to get completed in a year. The contact was also for a year, which ended eight months ago, but the work has not been completed yet. Everything will get cleared at the meeting”
• It is a Smart City project of Rs 49.44 crore with maintenance period of five years. However, the councillors said they did not know about the maintenance as no repair work was ever done