Tamil Nadu - Coimbatore   

Defunct traffic signals to glow soon

File Photo K. Ananthan

To come alive: Traffic signals will flash soon following Coimbatore Corporation’s move to foot the electricity bill charge. —

Coimbatore: The decision of the Coimbatore Corporation Council to foot the electricity consumption charge bills for the traffic signals has come as a gleam of hope for reviving the signals that were slowly turning defunct.

Earlier, the city police were managing the maintenance of the traffic signals in terms of replacing the worn out bulbs, broken reflective panels and glasses besides footing the electricity bills through advertisers. The court ruling against hoardings and advertisements on roads resulted in advertisers support standing completely eliminated.

As a result, of the 39 traffic signals started slowly becoming defunct owing to disconnection of power consumption charges for non-payment of bills. Even replacement of bulbs, reflective panels and glasses became a problem and the signals started turning out to be silent monuments. This also resulted in forcing the manpower-starved police machinery to deploy police constables at traffic signals even beyond the peak hour for managing the signals and to regulate the flow of traffic. The City Police Commissioner wrote a letter to the Coimbatore Corporation asking the local body to treat the signals as street lights and foot the electricity bills.

The resolution placed before the council was recently cleared wherein it was resolved to foot the electricity bills from the general fund and get the same refunded from the District Collector subsequently.

City police have already started listing out the signals that required immediate attention so as to carry out maintenance works and get the power supply connection restored.

Meanwhile, the police have also earmarked Rs. 1.5 crore for installation of 31 more traffic signals at congested junctions and are planning to have a fund to take care of the maintenance and power consumption charges for these new signals.

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