Non-working streetlights could hover around 50,000-60,000 in the city

GHMC faces delays in streetlight maintenance as new agency selection process could take up to two months.

Streetlight maintenance, which has been a sticking point for the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) for quite some time, could take longer for streamlining.

The agreement with Energy Efficiency Services Limited (EESL), a public sector agency, for streetlight maintenance ended on April 30, but no new agency has been chosen yet. The GHMC’s standing committee was presented with two choices—either continue with EESL or invite tenders. The committee unanimously opted for the latter. Officials informed that the process of choosing a new agency could take at least two months, during which the existing 17 vendors of the EESL will be continued.

“The tenders involve a huge expenditure, and GHMC does not have the authority to take a decision about it. We need to forward it to the government. It could take some time,” said an official.

An ongoing survey to take stock of the streetlight infrastructure before issuing tenders found that around 10% of the lights are non-functional, quating to a staggering 50,000-60,000 malfunctioning streetlights. For some lights, lamps need to be replaced, while for some others, MCBs or timers are non functional. Mopping up enough number of bulbs and other spare parts in the intervening period is proving to be a difficult task. As of June 4, a total 4,63,427 street lamps have been enumerated in the city as part of the survey.

The Streetlight Project with the aim of replacing all conventional lamps with LEDs began in 2018. While 98% glow rate was the condition on which payments were made to the EESL, the general glow rate had been much less than optimum. Mostly it hovered at about 70-80 per cent. The total number of LED streetlights installed in the city is 5,50,088.

Officials say that several agencies, particularly the LED manufacturers are evincing interest in bidding. The conditions to be incorporated in the service level agreement are 98% or above glow rate, penalties against day glowing, non rectification beyond the agreed period, non maintenance of buffer stock, non functioning of the dash board, and non functioning of CCMS (Centralized Control Monitoring System).