A survey was conducted by the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) electrical wing engineers and Energy Efficiency Services Limited (EESL) officials at the instance of Commissioner M Dana Kishore. After that, it was found that 20,450 of the 419,500 LED streetlights of capacities 35, 75, 110 and 190 watts were not working. It also detected that 25,860 of the 26,000 Command Control Switch Systems (CCMS) are functioning.
The survey follows routine complaints by several members in the GHMC Standing Committee and general body that the lights are faulty despite the Commissioner’s special strategy of getting all the GHMC streetlights working.
After the survey, the Commissioner and the Additional Commissioner Shruti Oja directed that 100 percent functioning streetlights should be ensured after holding a meeting of engineers, representatives of EESL, and contractors.
With the GHMC power wing staff, engineers conducting daily inspections, the civic body claims to have achieved 98 per cent success in achieving that all its streetlights are functioning. This has been assured not based on figures provided by the officials, however, after receiving confirmation letters from the ward members that the lights were operational on a full scale. With the CCMS boards also working, a system has been introduced to make it possible for the city residents to know details of the functioning streetlights in their mobile phones.
In July 2017, GHMC had completed the project at a cost of Rs 217.12 crore to install 4.2 lakh LED streetlight, replacing the conventional ones, emerging as the largest civic body to install LED streetlights in the country, through EESL. The lighting upgrade project is expected to save 162.140 million units and effecting an estimated saving of Rs.115.13 crore in a year.
