HYDERABAD: It has been 16 days since over a thousand street lights in Hyderabad’s BHEL Colony have been lit, round the clock. In spite of being alerted by the residents, when the authorities failed to take any action, a resident took to Twitter to spell out in numbers, the actual cost of this official callousness. At least Rs 3 lakh in taxpayers’ money and 23 lakh litres of water, which would have been used to produce the electricity required to light up the bulbs, were wasted by BHEL, noted the resident, Anumod Thomas.
He further pointed out how 23 lakh litres of water could have catered to the needs of nearly 17,000 people for a day. Anumod Thomas, a BHEL resident, took to Twitter on Tuesday to highlight how keeping so many street lamps lit up 24 hours a day, was wasting a large amount of electricity, water, as well as money. “I reported this issue on August 11 and still the issue persists, the wastage of government money is more than 3 lakh rupees.
If this electricity is generated from Hydro- Electric plant, then it wasted approximately 23 lakhs litres of water which about 17K people could use it in a day,” tweeted Anumod on Tuesday. Anumod’s calculations further explained the gravity of what may seem like a trivial issue of officials forgetting to switch off the light. “The calculations are based on the fact that the GHMC website mentions that street lights are generally of 75-watt bulbs.
Since they are running for 12 hours extra daily, so they consume about 1-kilo watts per bulb per day. This translated to over 1,000 kilowatts lost daily. The TSSPDCL website says they charge 1-kilo watt at `10. Conservative estimates show at least 3 lakhs is already lost,” noted Anumod.This is not the first time GHMC has been rapped for its poor street light management, with residents complaining that the lights are either off, or on, for many days straight. Meanwhile, GHMC officials noted that such faults occur due to the fault in the timer that controls their operation that is impacted by some brunt force on electricity polls.