The city Corporation has replaced as much as 60% of the street lights in the city with LED lights, according to information provided by the civic body’s engineering wing.
The replacement of the entire street lighting system in the city with LED lights has been happening in a phased manner, ever since the process began two years ago.
According to Corporation officials, the city currently has more than 90,000 street lights, out of which around 57,000 have now been replaced with LED lights. In addition to this, around 5,000 sodium vapour lamps have also been replaced.
“Right now, we are replacing those street lights that are not working with LED lights. So, the distribution may not be equal across all wards. This is the only way possible, as replacing tube lights that are in working condition will lead to losses. Selling the old tube lights at scrap value also is not an option,” said an official of the engineering wing.
The Corporation has managed considerable savings on power bills with the partial shift to LED lights. But, there has been a shortage of enough lights to replace the ones that have fallen into disuse for some time.
The civic body had first planned for the shift to LED street lights way back in 2014. This period has witnessed several rounds of discussions, postponements, and controversies over the street light project, which was perpetually caught in the processing stage.
The initial plan was to hire the services of a private firm to replace all the street lights in the city in one go. Although Expression of Interest was issued and several companies responded, the move did not take off. Though there was a plan to hire SIDCO for the project later, even that was dropped.
Now, the Corporation is continuing with the option of depositing money with the Kerala State Electricity Board (KSEB), which replaces the street lights in phases.
