A scam appears to be hidden behind Nagpur Municipal Corporation’s (NMC) Rs 470 crore light-emitting diode (LED) Smart Street Lighting project, meant to save electricity and money. The civic body is purchasing each LED light for Rs9,900, which is three times the market price even in the retail market, reported Times of India.
In an RTI reply to senior Congress corporator Sandip Sahare, NMC’s electricity department executive engineer Sanjay Jaiswal said that the cost for every 37-watt LED street light is Rs 9,900. Sahare asked about the cost of LED street lights in local markets, and also manufacturing companies, and claims that the lights were available for between Rs 3,400 and Rs 4,000 in the markets.
The English Daily too visited many city dealers and found that the price at which LED lights are being procured by NMC’s electricity department is too high. In fact, the cost per LED light even excludes the maintenance and operation cost. NMC will have to pay Rs 82 per street light per month for operation and maintenance, said Sahare, who has studied the terms and conditions of the project.
The estimated cost of the street light project is Rs 470 crore, of which Rs 277 crore is for replacement of existing street light panels with LEDs, Rs 106 crore for operation and maintenance of LED street lights for 99 months, Rs 59 crore for infrastructure development, and Rs 28 crore for works on Ring Road and Metro Rail corridor. Work orders for executing the works were issued to eight private companies in January this year.
