Thiruvananthapuram: LED streetlighting project gets dimmer

Thiruvananthapuram: Ruling and Opposition politicians at the City Corporation play petty politics, depriving the city of the ambitious LED streetlight project. The council which came into power nearly five years ago has failed to address the streetlight issue which directly concerns a 10 lakh population in the state capital.

The last minute effort by the LDF to fix the crisis by roping in an outside agency to woo voters failed as the Opposition came up with corruption charges against the deal with SIDCO – a public sector undertaking – to derail the project.

Now as a final attempt, the ruling front is planning to get the opinion of the Local Fund Audit Department to scrutinise the deal so that the project could be executed before the local body elections to be held in October this year.

Though the LDF is going ahead with the project and has signed the MoU (Memorandum of Understanding) with SIDCO to replace the entire lighting system with the sophisticated LEDs, the officials are not very keen because of the alleged corruption in the deal. The Opposition has vehemently criticised the LDF for not choosing Keltron, which too offered a fairly good deal for bagging the LED project.

Mayor K Chandrika told DC that all efforts would be made to ensure that the project was executed immediately. The plan is to execute the project under zero investment model and the corporation will repay the amount by sharing 50 percent of the power savings. Around 85,000 street lamps would be replaced as part of the project. “The draft MoU is ready and we legally vetted the document. Now to be on the safe side we will forward the file to the audit department too,” said the Mayor.

Amid raging corruption allegations, officials have become cautious and plan to seek Government sanction for the project, being pushed by the ruling front. “With so much going on we will not be able to go ahead with the project. Hence we have decided to forward the file for government sanction,” said a top official associated with the project.

Meanwhile, UDF councilors stick to their allegation that SIDCO is incompetent for the project.