No agency to maintain streetlights, sector roads plunge into darkness

Gurgaon: After dusk, roads of several colonies and sectors in the city are left in the dark as dozens of streetlights across areas aren’t functioning. The key reasons, residents alleged on Monday, is poor upkeep and maintenance of the streetlights, especially after the concessionaire that was alloted the job terminated the contract earlier this month over pending payments by MCG.Residents of sectors 21, 43, 46, 9A, 5, Malibu Towne and Sushant Lok 1 are among those who have complained about the issue. They say that many of the streetlights are not functioning, while many of the LED lights on the poles are missing. Patches without proper lighting have compromised the safety of women and senior citizens, and is allowing miscreants to roam free in the sectors, they allege. It doesn’t help that many of the roads are riddled with potholes, posing an accident risk as it becomes difficult for commuters to navigate in the dark.“There are around 100 poles on which no streetlights have ever been installed. Of the ones with the streetlights, over 100 are not working at all. There are multiple dark zones that hamper the security of our sector. Many lights in parks are in the same condition,” said Raj Kumar Yadav, RWA president of Sector 46.Suraj Bhola, general secretary of Sector 9A RWA, said, “There are lot of potholes on roads, especially after monsoon, turning these stretches into death traps. It is unfortunate that MCG does not have a backup plan.”There are a total of 82,000 LED streetlights in the city, and 800 centrally controlled and monitoring systems (CCMS) that are used to operate them. But some areas are yet to be integrated with CCMS, according to the civic corporation.Residents also said that they have made multiple complaints, but none have yielded any results. Some said they have resorted to paying out of their own pockets to replace the LED lights.“We have been grappling with non-functional streetlights for more than four months. More than 150 streetlights were not working at one point of time, after which the RWA had to step in and replace some of the streetlights with their own funds. With the streets full of stray dogs, senior citizens and kids find it difficult to step out of their homes, and women won’t feel safe walking in the dark lanes,” said Vijay Shiv Nath, secretary of Maliby RWAs’ Federation.Asked about the issue, a senior MCG official said on Monday that the civic corporation is in the process to float a tender to hire another agency for operating and maintaining streetlights in the city. The official said that MCG has deployed a team of 22 members who are attending to the residents’ complaints across the city. “There have been strict directions from the MCG commissioner to ensure arrangements for proper operation of streetlights across the city. We have already assigned the duty to the municipal corporation employees to resolve the complaints related to faulty streetlights,” he added.
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