Bhopal (Madhya Pradesh): Over 1,300 streetlights across old and new areas of the state capital have gone completely dark, plunging main roads and residential colonies into unsafe conditions at night. Despite the gravity of the issue, there has been no improvement.
Bhopal Municipal Corporation (BMC) call centre and CM Helpline receive 20 complaints every day but authorities don’t respond promptly. This has frustrated residents and elected public representatives equally. Local corporators said BMC electricity department engineers avoided their calls. With festivals approaching, the poor state of streetlights raises serious concerns, they said.
For the past five months, the same response has been given to every complaint that a tender worth Rs. 8.5 crore has been issued and the issue will be resolved soon. However, the situation is worsening. In last four months, 1,301 complaints related to streetlight outages have been officially registered, yet no visible action has been taken.
Bhopal has over 65,000 streetlights out of which 45,000 fall under BMC jurisdiction and remaining 20,000 are under Bhopal Smart City purview.
Month-wise complaints against defunct streetlights
April: 182 complaints
May: 187 complaints
June: 306 complaints
July: 626 complaints
Varun Awasthi, Additional municipal commissioner said, "We are monitoring all streetlight-related complaints. Based on priority, we install new streetlights and also carry out maintenance of old ones. Our aim is always to resolve complaints within a set time frame."
