Stating that installing LED (light-emitting diode) streetlights would reduce the electricity bill of the Mangaluru City Corporation, Minister for Urban Development and Haj R. Roshan Baig here on Saturday instructed the civic body to have them all over the city.
At a meeting to review the functioning of the civic body, the Minister asked Mohammed Nazir, commissioner of the corporation, to make a proposal to this effect.
An engineer of the corporation replied that now the civic body spent Rs. 11 crore annually for paying the bills of streetlights. If LED lights were installed, the annual bill would be only Rs. 6 crore.
The Minister asked a Karnataka Urban Infrastructure Development and Finance Corporation (KUIDFC) official to send him a report on the loopholes in the Phase I projects (underground sewage and drinking water) taken up in the city with the loan from the Asian Development Bank.
A consultant told the Minister that the underground sewage network could not be completed to an extent of 8 km in the Phase I due to issues relating to land acquisition, railway permission and deposit of huge rocks which came in the way of laying the network of pipelines.
Hence the network could not be completed in 35 locations where there is missing links.
The KUIDFC said those pending works have been proposed to be taken up under a Union government scheme.
Mayor seeks fund
Mayor Harinath sought Rs. 218 crore from the government for paying compensation to those whose land would be submerged by impounding water in the new vented dam up to seven mts. level. Now water has been stored at the dam up to five mts. level.
The Mayor said that the bill payable to a private company managing solid waste in the city has gone up from about Rs. 17 crore per annum to Rs. 30 crore per year. He requested the Minister to grant this amount also.
