EESL’s indifference makes people throw themselves into the darkness in the roads of Hyderabad
Hyderabad: Struggling on dim streets, or roads without street lights at all? Blame it on Energy Efficiency Services Limited (EESL) indifference to fulfil its contractual obligations to maintain the city’s street lights as the contract expires on April 30.
Hyderabad has over 5.25 million street lights within the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC), but some of them are dysfunctional. Others provide poor lighting. Elsewhere, overgrown trees block any light to teach the ground.
While there are multiple reasons for roadblock dysfunction, such as failures in centralized control monitoring systems (CCMS), wiring issues, employees not participating in complaints, delayed payments from the state to EESL appear to be the main factors affecting the normal operation of street lights.
Some of the main roads at the Jubilee Hills checkpoint, Basheerbagh, Kukatpally, Bachupally and Nizampet are not working well. Even on the overpasses in Begumpet and Narayanguda, street lights are not well lit.
Commuters using poorly lit streets told Deccan Chronicle that poor visibility on the road has been one of the main challenges they face when commuting and expressed concerns about accidents.
Employees, night shift work, heavy vehicles, taxis, car drivers work hard to reach their destination due to improperly managed lighting systems.
“On the main roads in Nizampet, street lights are not working. People are using high beams, which further increases the commuting dilemma, especially for drivers like me,” said technician R. Pritham.
Another IT employee who took office on a bicycle said the uneven road surface of Bailanes mixed together the poorly routed road problems.
“In the fence connecting the main road of Ameerpet, the height of the manhole cover does not match the level of the road, making it easy for cyclists to have accidents,” she said.
The responsibility for maintaining street lights in Hyderabad is GHMC, which is outsourced to EESL. As the contract will expire on April 30, the GHMC has written to the state government.
“According to the state’s decision, we either invite new tenders or expand contracts for existing companies,” GHMC officials said.
However, the official said the civic agencies were prepared to deal with any situation. He added: “We have an electrician in each of our operations except for engineers. If the new contract does not start quickly, we are ready to deal with this.”
