The Tribune: Bathinda: Friday, December 01, 2017.
The Municipal
Corporation Bathinda (MCB) is spending around Rs 7 crore every year on the
streetlights in the city. Despite this, a large number of complaints of
non-functional streetlights have flooded the MC office.
The MC is
paying Rs 6 crore electricity bill every year and Rs 66 lakh on its maintenance
and material, including tubelights, chokes, starters and bulbs, worth Rs 50
lakh are purchased in one year. The ground reality is that despite buying
material worth lakhs of rupees, the MC storeroom does not have starters, in the
absence of which streetlights are not working at various spots in the city.
Surprisingly, the MC does not have any record where its purchased material is
used.
This was
stated by MCB officials in a reply to the RTI inquiry lodged by a city
resident. RTI activist Sanjiv Goyal said he had sought information regarding
the record of material replaced during maintenance of streetlights, but the MC
has replied that they do not have any record. He said as per the act, it is
mandatory for the MC to maintain a record of small to big thing. The MC has
25,000 streetlight points in the city, for which the MC pays Rs 50 lakh
electricity bill every month.
As per the MC
record, in October they received 834 complaints of streetlights, out of which
only 23 are pending, while others have been resolved. In November, so far 700
complaints of streetlights have been received by the MC, out of which a
majority of complaints are pending as equipment is yet to come to the MC store.
Facing public
irked over non-operational streetlights, a few councillors have got these
repaired in their areas by paying from their own pocket. In the Congress
councillors Jugraj Singh and Nirmal Kaur wards, many lights have been lying
defunct, which will be repaired after the MC has received the stock.
MC senior
deputy mayor and F&CC member Tarsem Goyal said they inspected the material
after getting the supply and it had been made mandatory as earlier no one used
to inspect, but councillors raised this issue that despite purchasing material
of huge amount, streetlights in their areas are not functioning. Last year they
had made mandatory that without checking the material by F&CC members, the
bills of the contractor would not be passed. He also stated that work on changing
streetlights with LED lights was going on, but as this project got delayed, due
to which they had ordered the streetlight material late and contractor has been
given two months to provide the supply, due to which we are facing this
problem.
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