The work to illuminate the city streets with power-conserving LED lights taken up by the Tiruchi Corporation is nearing completion. Undertaken under the Smart Cities Mission and done in two phases, the project costs ₹23.4 crore. It will also help in saving 60% of the electricity which was earlier utilised by the civic body for lighting the street lamps, senior officials said.
The work, which began in 2019, was divided into phases. In the first phase, 19 wards in the four zones - K. Abhishekapuram, Ariyamangalam, Golden Rock and Srirangam were covered at a cost of ₹8.7 crore, while in the second, and final phase, the remaining 46 wards were covered at a cost of ₹14.7 crore. Earlier, in 2015, the civic body had replaced 26,391 fluorescent bulbs in street lights to LED at a cost of ₹ 30 crore.
According to plan, a total of 8,264 existing street lamps which were either fluorescent lights or sodium vapour were converted to SMART LED lights, while 800 new poles were erected in areas such as Thillai Nagar and Khajamalai, S. Sivasubramanian, City Corporation Commissioner, told The Hindu . While the sodium vapour bulbs and fluorescent lamps consumed around 400 watts of power, the new bulbs consumed half that amount.
Prior to the shift, the civic body had seen a consumption of 86.38 lakh units of electricity each year on street lighting alone. After converting to LED lights, the power consumption will come down to 34.70 lakh units, thereby saving nearly 60%, that is 51.6 lakh units. “This means that we will be saving money and also energy which can be utilised for other purposes in the city,” the Corporation Commissioner said. At least ₹3.3 crore would be saved, which can be invested in developing infrastructure in the city.
