Rourkela: All preparations have been put in place to light up the Steel City and give it a metropolis look.
The decision was taken at a meeting held Saturday which was presided over by the secretary of the state housing and urban development department.
The department would spend Rs 29.60 crore to light up five municipal corporations – Berhampur, Sambalpur, Cuttack, Bhubaneswar and Rourkela while Rs 5.10 crore would be spent in Steel City alone.
Rourkela Municipal Corporation would remove old lamps from prominent intersections of the city and replace them with bright LED lights.
The department has signed MoUs with two companies – one from Denmark and another from Delhi – to execute the project which would begin from August 7. The replacing of old lamps would be completed by October 30 in Rourkela, Berhampur and Sambalpur, it was learnt.
Nearly 6,500 LED bulbs would be fitted in all lamp posts of 33 wards of the city, RMC’s assistant electrical engineer Manas Ranjan Biswal said, adding that areas like Mahatab Road, Koel Nagar, main road leading to Chhend Colony, main roads of Basanti Colony, Panposh Hockey Chhak would be dealt with on a priority basis.
The agencies would soon make an extensive survey for the replacement of the bulbs. Apart from the main thoroughfare, the old bulbs fitted in the lamp posts of lanes and bylanes of the city would also be replaced, the engineers said.
Providing more details about the wattage of bulbs to be replaced, Biswal said the city will have 734 bulbs of 120 watts, 1,090 bulbs of 90 watts, 1,360 bulbs of 60 watts, 1,655 bulbs of 45 watts and 1,655 bulbs of 25 watts. The contracted firms would repair and maintain the lamp posts for the next seven years, he informed.
Residents of the Steel City have been demanding LED bulbs for the last two years. Though RMC authorities tried to rope in some reputed firms of the country to execute the work, it didn’t yield results. Later, the housing and urban development department assigned these two firms to do the job.
The development works have gain momentum after the city accorded Smart City status and the face of the city would change once the new LED lighting system is in place, RMC officials claimed. PNN