Public demands mechanism to check the quality of streetlights

KOZHIKODE: The public residing in the Kozhikode Corporation limits have demanded the civic body to ensure the quality of the streetlights being replaced at its various places. The opposition alleges that the low quality streetlights and spare parts being used to replace the faulty ones is the reason for the frequent damage of the lights soon after its replacement.
Though the Kerala State Electricity Board (KSEB) has been carrying out the removal of the faulty streetlights in the limits of seventy five wards on remitting of advance amount by the civic body, many streetlights go dysfunctional within a week of replacing it.
According to the Kozhikode Corporation, the civic body has been purchasing tube lights and spare parts from two agencies in the district. The civic body needs more than 10,000 streetlights per year to carry out the replacements. The civic body has earmarked a sum of around Rs 1 crore to purchase the streetlights and spare parts for the financial year 2014-2015.
Councilor P Kishan Chand who was former Public Works Standing committee chairman, said that similar issue was there in the corporation when he was the chairman. The civic body then purchased 25,000 bulk purchase of bulbs having the emblem of Kozhikode corporation after the corporation authorities came to know about the company which had given the contract to supply the bulbs and spare parts actually procured them from local manufactures,'' he said. The issue was solved after the civic body directly procured bulbs in large numbers from recognised manufacturers during 2007- 2008. At present, the civic body is handing over the bulbs on getting intimation from the KSEB. An official with the electrical wing of the KSEB is taking the bulbs after conducting check checking them,'' he said. The civic body with the help of KSEB should put in place a mechanism to check that contractors of the KSEB are replacing the faulty streetlights with the ones provided by the corporation. We believe the contractors may be replacing the streetlights with low quality streetlight and selling the quality lights provided by the corporation,'' he said.
Pokkunnu councilor K T Beeran Koya said that though the KSEB is replacing the faulty streetlights with new ones, the streetlights stop functioning after a week. The bulbs and other materials used for replacement are of substandard types,'' he said.
Meanwhile, M Mohanan, Chairman of the Public Works standing committee said that the civic body at present doesn't have any facility in its place to check the quality of the bulbs. We have been getting complaints about the damage of streetlights soon after replacing it with new one. The issue has been brought to the attention of the KSEB officials and we have requested them to provide details of it. We can ask the agencies entrusted with the supply of streetlights and spare parts to provide the new ones in case it goes dysfunctional within the guarantee period,'' he said. Though the civic body has sought the help of the KSEB to figure out the reason, we are yet to get positive response from them,'' he said.