The Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) has announced that all the streetlights would be replaced with energy saving LED bulbs. The ambitious project will soon turn into a reality as the government has given a go ahead and is going to issue work orders to the winning bidder after tenders were finalised.
In an energy saving and cost effective move, BBMP had called for global tenders in the matter earlier this year to replace about 4.7 lakh street lights with LED lighting solutions. The IT city has around 4, 70,648 street lamps for which the BBMP is paying Rs 12 crore as the bill every month or around Rs 140 crore per year.
Although, it is estimated to be much higher and about Rs 200 crore are paid every year to the Bangalore Electricity Supply Company (BESCOM), including maintenance and repair of these street lights. As per reports from BBMP, the saving after the installation is going to be Rs 3.5 crore in power bills every month.
BBMP will not be spending any money as the project is being undertaken by the design-build-finance-operate (DBFO) model. Also, the newly installed LED lamps would not need any maintenance for seven years.
Centralised control rooms would help the civic body monitor the LED street lamps. As per BBMP, the project has already been given approval by the
government and the work order will be started in a month to implement the same, within three years provided for installation and operation. The
project has been included in the Smart City Project under the Public Private Partnership (PPP) model.
