Punjab first state to introduce energy efficient street lights

Chandigarh, October 11, 2012: The Punjab has become the first state in the country to introduce Energy Efficient Street Lighting project in the state with a view to improve the overall energy efficiency of all the Urban Local Bodies, which would lead to a substantial savings in the electricity consumption besides reducing operation and maintenance expenditure.

Disclosing this here today Chunni Lal Bhagat, Local Bodies Minister said that the project would encompass the replacement of about 3.5 lakh Street Light points with Light Emitting Diode (LED) based on Energy Efficiency Equipments throughout the state. He said that presently all the Urban Local Bodies were paying an amount of Rs. 53 crore on energy bill and Rs. 17 crore on the operations  and maintenance charges. He said that after the installation of new LED street lights it would witness a substantial reduction of Rs. 24 crores in the energy bills for the ULBs besides the operations and maintenance expenditures. He said that a uniform illumination system would also cover under this project across all the roads.

Bhagat said that the Energy Efficient Street Lighting project would cover all 142 towns including all Municipal Corporations to improve the overall energy efficiency, which would register a massive saving in the electricity consumption. He said that the LEDs would give a complete operating efficiency along with automatic dimming system during night hours.

Giving details of energy efficient street lighting clusters, Bhagat said that the work on this project has been started at Bathinda cluster while the work on remaining clusters including Jalandhar, Amritsar, Ferozepur, Ludhiana and Patiala would commence in December 2012. He said that there were 20 Urban Local Bodies in Amritsar, 30 in Jalandhar, 20 in Ludhiana, 31 in Patiala, 17 in Ferozepur, and 19 in Bathinda, which would cover under Energy Efficient Street Lighting project.

Bhagat said that LEDs and other street light functioning would be operated and maintained on Public-Private-Partnership basis for a period of 10 years. He said that the LEDs have been designed as per the specifications by Research and Design and Standards Organisation (Ministry of Railways) and  after becoming the project operational all the LED faults would be repaired within a period of 48 hours and in case of failure of the same the concerned company would be liable to face the penalty of Rs. 100 per light point per day.