QUEEN’S ROAD: Plagued by long power cuts, the railway authorities are installing solar lights at the city’s road level crossings.
The lights are coming up at 160 crossings across the South Western Railway Division.
“We are now looking at enhancing the lighting capacity from 225 watts to 600 watts,” P K Saxena, General Manager, South Western Railways, told Express during a recent visit to Bengaluru. In lay person terms, that means brighter lamps.
Sanjiv Agarwal, Divisional Railway Manager, Bengaluru, said tenders had already been called for the illumination of 40 level crossings. Solar panels are already in place. “We have already harnessed solar energy at 58 level crossings during the last financial year,” he said.
Chain-snatching
C S Gupta, Senior Divisional Electrical Engineer, said providing illumination all night would provide protection from chain-snatching and other crimes near the smaller railway stations on the outskirts of the city.
“Frequent power cuts, sometimes lasting as long as 12 hours, are making it difficult to manage these points,” he said.
The crossings are located along the Bengaluru-Dharmavaram, Bengaluru-Dharmapuri, Bengaluru-Salem and Bengaluru-Mysuru sections, Gupta added.
“Enhancing the power capacity at the stations will help us keep the lights on for 10 to 12 hours a day as well as use fans and other electrical equipment,” he said.
It costs the railways between Rs 60,000 and Rs 80,000 at each station to provide solar panels to power bulbs and other connections.
Each station is equipped with 10 CFL lights to light up the station master’s room, platforms and other parts of the station.
“The generator now used for emergency can provide power only for a few hours and is used mainly inside the station master’s room as he has to control all operations,” Gupta said.
Heating system
To cut down on electricity bills, the division is replacing traditional geysers with solar heaters at retiring rooms, dormitories and railway colonies, the engineer said.
“Bangalore Division pays `1.2 crore towards electricity each month and we are trying to reduce it through these measures,” he said.