"The civic body has identified an agency for preparing the report. For ensuring transparency, the details will be presented before the council meeting to be held this month," said town planning committee chairman K J Sohan. The civic body has already constituted a stakeholders' committee and core committee for executing the project.

The project aims to install solar panels to power streetlights and major administrative offices of the corporation. Prior to the tariff hike announced by KSEB, the civic body paid between Rs 30 lakh and Rs 40 lakh as power charges on a monthly basis. "Now, the charges have gone up to Rs 75 lakh a month. By completely implementing the project we can reduce power tariff to between Rs 2-3 crore," he said.

Meanwhile, the corporation has also claimed that they would take up the project to convert all streetlights in the city into energy-efficient light emitting diode (LED) lamps. Since the project is to be carried out under the annuity scheme they have approached Kitco to draft terms and conditions for tendering the project. There are around 45,000 streetlights in Kochi. The high quality LED streetlights are expected to save 50 to 65% energy compared to high pressure sodium street lamps.

The corporation has started installing LED lights between Thevara and Vathuruthy near Naval Base. "This is being done on an experimental basis. The government has given us the 100 LED lights," said Sohan.

"The employees were allowed to go on a 14 day paid leave for this program. The program included training of yoga, pranayam and meditation techniques. The trainers also emphasized on maintaining diet. Looking at the different daily timetables, tips on dieting and food habits were given the employees. The trainers also provided information on the exercises for the employees of different age groups," civic officials said.

The total strength of PMC employees and Pune Mahanagar Parivahan Mahamandal Limited (PMPML) staff, is 17,000. There are 15 ward offices of PMC and other civic work offices such as birth / death certificate registration section, water works, crematoriums, gardens and hospital. Nearly 2,500 employees of PMC work in the main building.

"The municipal employees encounter challenging works everyday. They need to meet people of various strata of society. People of different nature and demands approach PMC for their works. Many of them try to exert social and political pressure for getting their things done. The jobs of a municipal employee is full of risks and stress. This has increased mental and physical exertion of the employees'', the officials said.