Old bulbs to brighten streets outside city limits

Following Govt.’s instruction to civic body to hand old street light bulbs to other local bodies

Coimbatore Corporation will soon handover to neighbouring local bodies the street light bulbs it will replace in the old 60 wards in the city.

Residents of local bodies outside the city limits may soon have improved street light coverage, if the State Government instruction to the Coimbatore Corporation to handover its street light bulbs is anything to go by.

According to Corporation sources, the Government has instructed the civic body to handover to neighbouring local bodies the bulbs it will replace under a project to change all the street light bulbs to LEDs.

The Corporation under the Smart Cities Mission has embarked on the project to replace more than 45,000 bulbs to LEDs at around ₹ 70 crore. It recently got approval from the Government for the project and Municipal Administration and Water Supply Minister S.P. Velumani kick started the project.

The Corporation has estimated that it has 58,878 bulbs in 60 wards and of those it wanted to replace 46,191 bulbs that were tube lights, sodium vapour, CFL or metal alloy with LEDs. The objective behind going for the replacement is to reduce energy consumption and thereby the money spent on power charges.

The Corporation currently spent ₹1.57 crore a month on power charges for street lights and has estimated that it would have to spend only ₹ 77.19 lakh if it were to use LED bulbs. Once the Corporation removes the old bulbs, it will hand over those to the neighbouring local bodies.

The sources say that which local body will get how many bulbs and at what cost will be worked out later, as per Government instruction. But the move is aimed at reducing the expenditure the local bodies may have to bear for buying new bulbs.