Friday, October 16, 2014: Kesavapuram bridge at Maruthamkuzhy, Kerala, is now two years old, and it’s all set to be illuminated with solar-powered LED lights shortly. Commuters’ daily woes while traveling on the bridge will come to an end with this development, as the 106.23-metre-long bridge was covered by utter darkness so far.
Several fatal accidents have taken place on this bridge till date because of lack of street lights. As mentioned on TOI, the ward councillor G Suresh Kumar said the initial plans by PWD had no provisions for street lights and later on the plans got delayed due to lack of coordination between PWD and the corporation. Residents used to lodge daily complaints with MLA K Muraleedharan and now funds were allocated to install the street lights and the contract was awarded to Keltron. The total sum of the fund is Rs 1.14 million and it has been allocated from the MLA special development fund.
Keltron has manufactured the required 20W LED lights for the stretch and the company will also maintain the lights for three years. An engineer from Keltron, Abdul Samad, who is also the in-charge of the project, said twenty solar powered street lights will be placed on the bridge, 10 each on every side. The lights will be placed in a zig-zag way so that every dark corner is covered. He also said that during daytime the streetlights will automatically get turned off and they also have a power back-up facility for three days, which means in cloudy days too the streetlights will function normally.
The lights will come as huge relief for daily commuters, including pedestrians and motorists. In next few week, the streetlights are expected to start functioning after an official inauguration. The lighting system will be inaugurated by MLA K Muraleedharan.
