The general meeting of the Mangaluru City Corporation (MCC) council held on Wednesday, witnessed furore over failure in the implementation of LED streetlight project, which should have been completed by December 2021.
Since the project failed to achieve at least 20% progress, even after many deadline extensions, the city corporation has decided to invite tenders again, to install 60,000 LED streetlights in the city.
In fact, a decision to invite tenders again was taken at a meeting chaired by district minister V Sunil Kumar, in Bengaluru recently.
MCC commissioner Akshy Sridhar said the concessionaire had failed to complete the project of installing 60,000 LED streetlights within the time-frame.
“Only 20% of the works have been completed so far, in 60 wards in the MCC limits. Hence, it was decided at a meeting attended by the district minister, district in-charge secretary, and secretary to department of urban development, to float a tender again for the work. The process has been initiated, and tender will be floated within two weeks,” he said.
The MCC has also sought permission from the directorate of municipal administration, to replace the faulty LED lamps in the wards, till the new contractor takes up the work, he added.
The project aims at converting all conventional streetlights in 60 wards of the city corporation, into LEDs, with a centralised automatic switching point system.
The project is expected to save nearly 50% of the electricity bill on streetlights.
