The percentage of streetlights that do not function in the city has come down from 3.2 per cent in June to 2.8 per cent in July. This translates to 520 more streetlights working without problems. The city has a total of 1,32,714 streetlights.
Corporation Commissioner D.Karthikeyan said the functioning of the Electricity Department has been reviewed recently and officials told to attend to complaints immediately.
“Residents can call 1913 our helpline about non-functioning of streetlights and it will be attended to as soon as possible. We are ensuring that maintenance is being done on a regular basis, which has helped bring down non-functioning,” Mr. Karthikeyan said.
Sources in the civic body said they are trying to follow and close complaints within 24 hours from the time of the call. Problems, including cable fault during heavy rain, puncture of cables during road cuts and voltage fluctuations, cause streetlights to malfunction.
Last year, the non-functioning percentage ranged between four and five. The civic body has also asked the TANGEDCO to control voltage fluctuation.
For the current financial year, around 1,000 poles would be erected, of which 30 per cent would go to replace old rusty poles. Sometimes new poles are erected following requests from the police stating insufficient lighting at traffic junctions or certain locations on streets. New poles are also erected when the gap between two poles is more than 25 metres.
