Without much of a fanfare, the Coimbatore Corporation with the support of Singanallur MLA R. Chinnasamy, has gone about installing solar street lights.
According to Deputy Commissioner, Coimbatore Corporation, S. Sivarasu, the civic body has thus far installed 220 solar street lights and is in the process of installing 50 more. Each of the lights is powered by 27 watt bulbs.
He says that the Corporation has installed the lights in wards that come under the Singanallur Assembly Constituency — the entire East Zone of the Coimbatore Corporation, all the wards in the Central Zone and Wards 38, 39, 40 and 45 in the North Zone.
At Rs. 33,000 a street light, the Corporation has so far spent close to Rs. 89.10 lakh. And Mr. Chinnasamy allocated the total amount from his Constituency Development Fund.
Mr. Chinnasamy said that he had allocated Rs. 40 lakh in 2011-12 and Rs. 50 lakh in 2012-13 for solar street lights installation. “At the time of allocating the money, I had told the Corporation officials that the money should be used only for installation of solar lights because, after Chief Minister Jayalalithaa announced the solar policy, I wanted to install solar street lights in my constituency.”
“I also instructed the officials that they must choose the place for installation in consultation with the ward councillors concerned and those must be in slums or places where people have been suffering without street lights for long.”
Mr. Chinnasamy further said that in the first year of allotment he had asked the Coimbatore Corporation to install six street lights in the each of the wards that formed part of his constituency. And in the second year it was nine.
Corporation officials said that they had installed the lights in slums and places where the poor lived.
