Indian Express 24.08.2010
Over half of streetlights not functional: corporators
Express News Service Tags : corporation, civic administration Posted: Sat Aug 21 2010, 06:01 hrs
Pune: Elected representatives in the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) on Friday came down heavily on the civic administration, saying around half of the two lakh streetlights in the city were non-functional.Raising the issue in the general body meeting today, BJP leader Mukta Tilak said, “The civic body is spending huge amount of funds on streetlights but the administration has failed to maintain them, adding to the inconvenience of commuters.”
Corporators of all political parties criticised the electrical department of the PMC and brought up the problems in their respective electoral wards.
They demanded that there should be a dedicated officer to head the department unlike the existing situation and the manpower of department should be increased as only 56 personnel are employed for maintenance.
The civic administration decision to not take up work of replacing electric poles with cables was also raised by the corporators.
However, Deputy Municipal Commissioner Vijay Dahibhate said the civic body had undertaken the replacement work in last few years as part of road widening project under JNNURM even though it was the job of the state power utility.
“But as the MSEDCL has now taken up the work of laying underground cables, the PMC has discontinued it,” he added.
On being criticised for not implementing energy saving scheme for street lights, Dahibhate said the civic body has saved one crore unit by taking up scheme of using energy saving lamps for streetlights.
