Six companies have responded to the Thiruvananthapuram Corporation’s call for Expression of Interest for a project to shift the entire streetlight system in the city to LED lights and maintain it over a period of ten years. Among the respondents are a Mumbai-based company, a Bengaluru-based company, a Delhi-based company and three companies from Kerala.
The technical committee set up by the Corporation has evaluated the technical bids and sought certain clarifications from the companies, which have to respond within two weeks. Following this, the financial bids will be opened. Currently, around 60% of the streetlights in the city have already been switched to LED.
The civic body has proposed a public-private partnership model under which it will not pay a fixed amount annually for the maintenance of streetlights. The chosen company will also have to set up a centralised monitoring system which will provide a real-time picture of the streetlights that are not functioning. The Corporation plans to include clauses including fines for not carrying out maintenance on streetlights within 48 hours. This clause is being included as delay in addressing complaints has been one of the issues plaguing streetlight maintenance in the city.
The Kozhikode Corporation is currently following a similar model, which has allowed it to bring down the annual expenses of streetlight maintenance and power bills. The LED streetlights to be newly installed will have to be as per the national standards on the luminosity of streetlights. Till now, the civic body has been banking on the Kerala State Electricity Board, which replaces the streetlights in phases after the Corporation deposits money in advance.
The civic body had first planned for the shift to LED streetlights way back in 2014. This period witnessed several rounds of discussions, postponements, and controversies over the project, which was perpetually caught in the processing stage.
The initial plan was to hire the services of a private firm to replace all the streetlights in the city in one go. Although Expression of Interest was issued and several companies responded, the move did not take off. Though there was a plan to hire SIDCO for the project later, even that was dropped.
