The streetlights in the city would be completely replaced with LED lights by September 12. File
| Photo Credit: Vibhu H
The streetlights in the city would be completely replaced with LED lights by September 12, Mayor Arya Rajendran said at a special meeting of the Thiruvananthapuram Corporation council here on Monday. The special meeting was convened as per the demands of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) councillors who alleged that the LED streetlight project has been beset with delays.
During the meeting which witnessed heated debates, the BJP councillors also raised placards alleging corruption in the project. However, Ms. Rajendran said that those raising such allegations should be able to substantiate them with proof. She said that there has been no lapse on the part of the Corporation. The civic body had issued two notices to the agency which was contracted to replace the streetlights in the city with LED lights, after they had delayed the installation.
The contracts for the Thiruvananthapuram, Kazhakuttam and Neyyatinkara division were awarded to different companies in February this year with the deadline for completion at September 12. After the Corporation noticed that work of installing streetlights was not progressing at the intended pace, notices were issued seeking their explanation for not annulling the contract. Following this, the company officials provided an explanation which was found to be satisfactory. A technical committee was also appointed to monitor the progress of the work and to ensure completion within the deadline.
Works Standing Committee Chairperson Medayil Vikraman said that the contracted companies were asked to initially conduct a survey on the number of streetlights that were non-functional. A total of 11,960 lights were found to be non-functional, out of which 11,750 have been replaced till now. Out of the 1,553 transformers across the three divisions in the city, streetlights under 1,007 transformers have been replaced. Responding to the allegations of BJP councillors that many newly replaced LED lights were not working, he said that there are clauses in the contract to penalise the company by reducing its payments if maintenance work is not carried out within a stipulated period.
