VIJAYAWADA: Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu has emphasised on the time-bound action plan to finalise the modalities to take up gram panchayats LED street lighting project in the State.
The proposed project is expected to cover 13,000 villages and save 40 per cent of energy.
In a teleconference with Chief Secretary designate Dinesh Kumar, principal secretary (panchayat raj and rural development) K Jawahar Reddy, principal secretary (energy) Ajay Jain, APGENCO and APTRANSCO CMD K Vijayanand and other higher officials on Sunday, he said Andhra Pradesh should be the first State in the country to provide LED street lighting in villages.
Naidu said the programme envisages replacing of around 30 lakh ordinary street lights with LED street lights in around 13,000 villages of State.
He said apart from providing better lighting, the scheme would provide an opportunity for village panchayats to utilise the money due to energy saving for other welfare schemes.
Pointing out at the situation prior to 2014, he said people in villages had suffered due to power cuts more than 12 hours per day.
In last three years, the situation has been changed a lot with priority being given for round the clock power supply even in the remotest tribal areas of the State, Naidu claimed. On the occasion, the CM thanked Union Minister of State for Energy Piyush Goyal for agreeing to invest over I1,200 crore in the State for LED street lighting. The CM said he had requested Goyal for expediting the project of gram panchayats LED street lightning.
Officials concerned were directed to prepare a time-bound action plan, which includes blueprint with detailed analysis and specific time frame schedule for successful completion of the project in a year.
They were asked to continuously pursue with officials of Union Energy Ministry and to form a joint committee of panchayat raj department, energy department and EESL, if necessary.
They were also asked to conduct a special state-level workshop at Amaravathi to involve all sarpanches of village panchayats and other public representatives to seek their suggestion and entrusted the task of ensuring its success to Panchayat Raj Minister Ch Ayyanna Patrudu. Officials were also asked to develop a centralised control and monitoring system (CCMS) for managing the street lights through remote control.
He also wanted them to link the CCMS to CM’s CORE dashboard. They were asked to study the best practices across the world, particularly in European countries with regard to rural energy efficient street lighting programme. He set the target of a year to complete the project. During the meet, EESL managing director Saurabh Kumar informed the CM that EESL will take up the project as special project and make more investments in AP.