United Electrical Industries Limited to light up streets ahead of Onam

Thiruvananthapuram: Sole bidder United Electrical Industries Limited has won the Rs 1.6-crore contract for supplying streetlight spare parts to Thiruvananthapuram corporation. This will help light more than 40-50 per cent streetlights which are under repair now. The corporation council on Thursday unanimously ratified the purchase committee’s decision to award the contract to the public sector company even as many opposition councilors raised doubts about the quality of the parts the company supplied and called for quality examination.

Several councilors said they supported the bid despite their dissatisfaction as they did not want to be held responsible for delaying the process. Re-tendering would take another month and the lights should be lit before Onam, they said. Powdikonam councillor Narayanamangalam Rajendran, however, said that the issue could be with the contractors and not the quality of spare parts.

BJP councillor of Valiavila Giri Kumar said the ruling front had delayed the process of inviting tenders but the Mayor rebutted it saying the decision to invite tenders was taken only in July. The previous government had decided that streetlight spare parts could be bought from United Electricals without inviting tenders.

On February 25, the government extended the validity of the order by a year. However, following complaints about parts the company supplied, the state-level coordination committee which deals with LSGD issues decided on July 13 that purchases for streetlight maintenance should follow a tender process, the mayor said. This delayed the decision, he added.