Dim hope for MANIREDA street lighting project
Source: Hueiyen News Service

Imphal, February 04 2015: Thousands of solar street lamps in rural areas of the state installed by the Manipur Renewable Energy Development Agency under a project costing Rs 10 crores have ceased to function.

The installation of the solar street lamps was carried out with the astute aim of cutting down the dependence and consumption of electricity and alleviating the power shortage problem to some level.

The work for installing the lamps in villages falling under the jurisdiction of the Rural Development and Panchayati Raj department commenced in 2010.Finally, the ambition of lighting the streets and corners in areas covered by 165 panchayat bodies was realized in 2011 after the installation of 3,189 solar street lamps.

As part of the plans for execution of the project, MANIREDA allotted Rs 5 crores to a Bengaluru based firm M/S Bharat Electronics Limited for putting up the solar lamps and another amount of Rs 5 crores to M/S Sophia Traders for supply of the equipment.

The success of MANIREDA in lighting even the narrow village lanes brought smiles in the faces of many villagers.

There were even controversies on the basis of the reports that the solar street lamps were erected at the compound of pradhans beside the village thoroughfares.

Sadly, within the next two years hundreds of the solar street lamps started to malfunction mainly due to lack of proper maintenance.

The matter aggravated further and within four years there remained only a few areas where just one or two lamps were still working.

Reporters who toured the villages to inspect the condition of the solar lighting system discovered that most of the batteries that served the power supply to the lamps were in condemned state.

On the other hand, the fuse of the bulbs had blown resulting in total darkness.

The lamp posts were shaky and apparently waiting to fall down at the softest touch.

On further investigation, the matter came to light that MANIREDA had released only half of the total project amount to the firms entrusted with the execution of the project.

In a related development, it has been learnt that the joint secretary of RD & PR has send an intimation to the deputy secretary (finance) on January 27 with the direction to release the pending sum of Rs 5 crores to M/S Bharat Electronics Ltd.

The ambitious project for illuminating the roadways in rural areas had collapsed due to the failure to release the outstanding amount of the suppliers and a resulting apprehension about asking the government to allocate fud for maintenance work.

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