Ruing the “bad name” it has earned because of poor streetlighting, the South Delhi Municipal Corporation blamed the state-run Energy Efficiency Services Limited (EESL) for doing the work in a haphazard manner.
The SDMC told the Delhi High Court that the vendors involved in replacement of conventional lights with LED lights did not do the work properly from the start.
The civic body told a Bench headed by Chief Justice G. Rohini that it had served a showcause notice to EESL, a joint venture of various Public Sector Undertakings of Ministry of Power, regarding its poor workman performance.
Energy wastage
It also said due to slow Centralized Control and Monitoring System (CCMS), streetlights continue to be operated manually even beyond dark hours, leading to energy wastage, while poor quality of products is leading to the lights falling off every now and then.
‘Poor workmanship’
The civic body also said that the EESL entrusted the work of project management consultant to ILFS which is responsible for the poor workmanship of M/s FIEM and M/s Bajaj, the LED lights suppliers.
“From the start, the vendors have taken up the work in a very haphazard manner as they did not provide bimettalic connector, SPD was not fixed properly, angle of bracket was not proper, rusted and damaged brackets had not been replaced. Therefore, the streetlights started falling. The problem aggravated during the rainy season and the situation now is alarming,” said the civic agency.
Lab testing
“Due to failure of these lights, the SDMC is facing huge criticism from various quarters of society, including public representatives. In order to ascertain the quality of these lights, EESL has lifted a number of samples of various wattage from all the four zones of SDMC and has sent them to national accredited labs for testing,” it said.
The arguments came to light during a hearing of a PIL filed by south Delhi residents Manjeet Singh Chugh and Ravi Gopal Krishnan who had come to court with photographs of dark or dimly lit roads in their area despite the use of LED lights, which replaced halogen lights and cost the exchequer crores of rupees.
