The Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) on Tuesday filed an application seeking permission of the High Court of Karnataka to finalise the tender for implementing a new energy-efficient street light project, which “saves” around ₹100 crore a year at the rate of around ₹8.4 crore a month for the civic body. The High Court, in an interim order passed on January 30 directed the BBMP not to finalise the tender for implementing the project through a qualified energy service company.
The interim order was passed on a petition filed by the BBMP Power Contractors’ Association, which had questioned the legality of the tender process. Under the project, the company that secures the contract through the bid will have to replace all 4.85 lakh exiting conventional street lights with the energy-efficient LED lights within 30 months in five phases.
The new system will have a technology for dimming the street lights during non-peak hours for reducing energy consumption, and the selected ESCO has to operate and maintain the street lights for 10 years, the BBMP has said in its statement submitted to the court, while pointing out that payment to the ESCO will be around 80 to 90 % of the amount saved from implementing energy-efficient methods.
Apart from this, the ESCO also will have to set up infrastructure such as a common monitoring mechanism for the entire street light network for quicker reporting and rectifying non-working street lights, establishing a communication network for installation of surveillance cameras and environmental sensors to track pollution levels.
The petitioner had termed the tender as violative of the provisions of the Karnataka Transparency in Public Procurements Act , and as an attempt to deprive the existing electricity contractors from bidding by making tender conditions in favour of multinational companies.
However, the BBMP has denied the allegations of the petitioner while terming the project as the one initiated in public interest and for saving money to the exchequer based on a study reportby experts submitted by Energy Efficient Services Ltd, a joint venture of public sector undertakings under the Ministry of Power, Union of India.
