VIJAYAWADA: Aimed at improving repair and maintenance of LED streetlights, the State government is contemplating to revamp the existing Complaint Monitoring System, which has proved ineffective, by bringing together three departments — Energy, Panchayat Raj and Rural Development (PR and RD), and gram volunteers and village secretariats — on a single platform. The objective is to bring down the grievance redressal time from the existing 72 hours to between 24 hours and 48 hours.
According to officials, the existing streetlights maintenance system is inadequate and is unable to address the issues within the stipulated time in view of huge volume of streetlighting system in the State. There are 25.04 lakh LED streetlights across the State. Officials said that though more than 90 per cent of people are positive about the streetlights initiative, they are complaining about the delay in rectifying complaints on non-glowing lights.
While PR and RD department will be responsible for the streetlights, the other two departments will help it in strengthening the system. PR and RD Minister Peddireddy Ramachandra Reddy, according to a statement issued by the Energy department on Sunday, has directed principal secretary Gopal Krishna Dwivedi and commissioner M Girija Shankar to submit an action plan in the forthcoming high-level meeting to set up a permanent and an effective redressal system.
Energy Efficiency Service Ltd (EESL) managing director Saurabh Kumar, which has installed 23 lakh of the total 25.04 lakh streetlights, requested the minister to resolve certain pending issues with regard to the project. The EESL would continue to support the State in streetlighting maintenance issues, he said.