At a time when cities across India have launched a campaign to replace the existing traditional streetlights with light emitting diodes (LEDs) to save electricity, civic bodies in Jammu are yet to wake up and adopt the latest technology.
Replacing conventional streetlights with LEDs could result in saving of thousands of electricity units every year in the power-starved state where long-duration power cuts are a norm during both winter and summer months.
The majority of the street and high-mast lights installed across the city use conventional bulbs which consume more electricity and have become a burden on civic bodies having meagre sources of income. If all the lights are replaced with LEDs, it will save 50 per cent energy.
“An LED has a very long life, almost 50 times more than an ordinary bulb and 8-10 times that of a CFL. Therefore it saves both energy and expenditure. LEDs should be installed on priority,” said Surjeet Singh, a local resident.
As per the data, there are 45,565 streetlights installed in capital cities — 15,683 in Srinagar and 29,882 in Jammu — by respective Municipal Corporations. Most of them were installed after 2005, when the last municipal elections were held in J&K after the gap of 23 years.
Officials said despite displeasure shown by the Power Development Department (PDD), which has alleged that most of the lights were installed by corporations and former MLAs without following rules and as they failed to sign an agreement with the department crores of rupees remain unrecovered.
“Only installation is not the solution, but latest technology should be adopted to ensure that people get benefit. Majority of the streetlights remain shut because of power shutdown and a solution to this is very important,” said Sushil Sharma, a trader at Jewel Chowk.
In the past 10 years, under various civic projects, crores of rupees were spent on the installation of lights in Paloura, Gandhi Nagar, Shastri Nagar, Channi, Parade, Kachi Chawni, Janipur, Roop Nagar, Bari-Brahman and several town of the Jammu region.
Jammu fails to use power-saving LEDs to light up streets, roads
