The Greater Chennai Corporation has started reducing the height of street lights from 8 metres to 5 metres to improve lighting, prevent damage to trees and improve green cover.
A large number of trees have been pruned ahead of monsoon to remove foliage blocking the street lights along many stretches. Most of the 471 bus route roads and 35,000 streets had trees that require frequent pruning to improve lighting. This month, the Corporation reduced the height of street lights in Anna Nagar Ward 104 in I Block 42nd Street, Udhayam Colony following the demand by DMK Councillor T.V. Shemmozhi at the Town Planning Committee Meeting of the Corporation.
The Corporation has started reducing the height of the street lights in roads such as Arya Gowda Road. The height of street lights in the interior roads of all the 15 zones will be reduced to five metres shortly, said an official. Owing to the decrease in height, the street light fittings have been converted from 110 W to 90 W, leading to power saving by the civic body, said the official.
The decrease in height has prevented the glare of the lights from affecting driving along the stretches, the officials said. The civic body is maintaining 2.86 lakh street lights which are energy saving LED lights. The height of more than 50% of the street lights are expected to be reduced on stretches with a large number of trees.
