Work on Gurugram LED streetlight project resumes after 3 weeks

MCG officials said work on installing streetlights has started at several points across the city, including Sector 10, Baldev Nagar, Jyoti Park, Madan Colony and New Colony.

Gurugram

Work on installing streetlights has started at Gurugram’s Sector 10, Baldev Nagar, Jyoti Park, Madan Colony and New Colony. (Yogendra Kumar/HT PHOTO)

Work on the Municipal Corporation of Gurugram’s (MCG) LED streetlight project has resumed after a gap of three weeks, after the concessionaire, Energy Efficiency Services Limited (EESL), replenished its stock of LED bulbs, officials said.

MCG officials said work on installing streetlights has started at several points across the city, including Sector 10, Baldev Nagar, Jyoti Park, Madan Colony and New Colony.

“For a short period, there was no supply (of LED bulbs) by our vendors. We realized that existing infrastructure was not equipped to withstand high temperature and strong winds. There were several complaints with regard to short circuit and wire breakage in the LED streetlights that had been installed.” Venkatesh Dwivedi, North Zonal Manager, EESL, said.

“Hence, EESL had stopped work on installing streetlights and instead switched focus on upgrading the infrastructure and maintenance of the equipment to ensure that the LED bulbs function,” Dwivedi added.

HT had recently carried a series on how poorly lit city streets have become a security nightmare for residents.

On June 6, MCG officials had served a notice to EESL and directed it to expedite completion of the project. However, MCG officials later said that several distributors had stopped supplying bulbs to the concessionaire as they believed the Street Lighting National Programme (SLNP) of the central government was causing a price distortion in the market, with bulbs being distributed at highly subsidised rates, thereby leading to losses.

However, Dwivedi denied this to be the case.

Under the project, 49,000 sodium vapour streetlights are to be replaced with LED bulbs and 8,000 new streetlights are to be installed as well.

Till now, 13,000 LED streetlights have been installed in wards 2, 3, 5, 15, 33 and 34.

In an interview with Hindustan Times earlier this month, MCG Commissioner Yashpal Yadav had said that 57,000 streetlights would be installed across the city by the end of July, provided ‘there were no hurdles’.

MCG officials have conceded that the three-week delay has pushed the project’s deadline to September as “the existing infrastructure is being upgraded to withstand weather conditions”.