Baripada: Crores of rupees have been spent for street lighting facility in Baripada municipality and NAC areas in Mayurbhanj district.
But the illumination drive is gradually becoming paralysed for lack of maintenance in the civic body areas, a report said. According to the report, over 5000 street lights have become defunct, leaving the street dark at night.
Such situation has allegedly given rise to various criminal activities in some areas. Denizens alleged that they had to pay holding tax for various facilities, but dark streets have led to multiple problems at night.
Over 2 lakh people reside in 28 wards under the Baripada municipality. Under a central sponsored scheme, a private agency identified as Energy Efficiency Service Limited (EESL) was awarded street lighting work in Baripada civic body area in 2014-15.
The project entailed installation of 8,500 street lights. LED lights ranging between 35 watts to 110 watts have been fixed along the main roads in all the wards.
However, thousands of streets lights are out of order as the agency looking after maintenance of street lights has engaged a technician who finds it difficult to manage such a huge task, it was alleged.
There are 216 CCMS boxes in the Baripada civic body area to control the lighting system. However, over 100 of them are out of order.
“Over 5000 street lights are not working in the municipality area,” lamented residents of ward-7 like Prakash Nayak and Harapriya Sethi. Many residents have expressed their unhappiness over dark streets at night, seeking their immediate repair.
Sources in the civic body said that a year ago 1300 street lights were installed under greenfield scheme while 200 more lights will be installed.
Manoranjan Panigrahi, who looks after streetlights in Baripada, said Astha Electricals has been assigned the maintenance of the streetlights while only one technician has been engaged for it.
The same technician also looks after streetlights in Rairangpur municipality, Karanjia and Udala NACs. Contacted, executive officer of the municipality Anya Das said streetlights will be repaired soon and funds have been allocated.
PNN