The Kathmandu Metropolitan City has announced that it will instal electric street lights along major road sections and inner parts of the metropolis as part of its ‘Kathmandu Ujyalo’ programme.

The metropolis said it was switching to electric lights from solar lights to make the programme cost effective.

The metropolis has allocated Rs50 million to instal 6,000 electric street lamps at various road sections of the metropolis, mainly focusing on places that are prone to accidents and are unsafe for pedestrians and motorists.

Ishwor Man Dangol, spokesperson for the metropolis, said his office was going to call tender for the installation of the street lamps after two months. The street lamps will be installed in Tripureshwor, Sinamangal, Balaju, Chabahil, Chakrapath, Kamalpokhari and Putalisadak in the first phase of the programme.  

 “As per the demand of all the 32 wards, we need to instal 16,000 street lamps. It costs around Rs150 million. We don’t have that amount right now,” said Dangol. “This time the metropolis is mainly focusing on installing lamps in areas where new CCTV cameras are going to be instaled.”

The metropolis and Nepal Police last week also agreed to instal CCTV cameras so as to ensure security. On March 6, Kathmandu Mayor Bidya Sundar Shakya handed over Rs30 million to the Metropolitan Police Office to buy and instal CCTV cameras in the metropolis.

The metropolis, in association with the police office, is going to instal 120 CCTV cameras at “sensitive areas” and major junctions as part of the Community Police Partnership Campaign launched by the police.

For this, the Metropolitan Police Office has contributed Rs30 million. “Before we instal these CCTVs, we need to illuminate these areas with lights. That is why the metropolis is working on instaling street lights,” said Dangol.  

According to him, instaling electric lights is cheaper than solar lamps.

“From our earlier experience, we have learned that instaling a single solar lamp costs Rs110,000 but we can instal a single electric lamp with Just Rs 10,000,” said Dangol.

In 2016, the metropolis had signed an agreement with BK Traders and Suppliers to instal 1,285 solar-powered street lamps in different parts of the metropolis.

Till date, the Nepal Electricity Authority has installed 1,700 solar lamps in the Kathmandu valley under the Asian Development Bank’s ‘Kathmandu Ujyalo’ project with an estimated cost of Rs250 million.

However, hundreds of the installed solar lamps in the Valley are currently not in a working condition. Neither the metropolis nor the Nepal Electricity Authority has shown interest to repair them. Instead, both are blaming each other.

When the Post inquired about repairing the solar lamps, Dangol said that the metropolis has deployed its staff to inspect the defunct solar lamps.

“We are also going to replace those defunct solar lamps with electric ones, as they are cheaper to replace than to fix,” said Dangol.