By Our Staff Reporter
Dehradun, 7 Oct: District Magistrate Savin Bansal has now formally assigned the responsibility of repairing street lights to the Dehradun Nagar Nigam (Dehradun Municipal Corporation). Orders regarding this have been issued. The work has been taken off from EESL which had the contract of not only repairing the street lights but also installing the new lights for the year 2024. However, EESL will continue to install new lights till the end of its contract period which will be over on 31 December, 2024. As per the instructions of the DM, as a backup plan, the Nigam will also be involved in procurement and installation of new street lights. From tomorrow, Nagar Nigam teams will start attending to the complaints, beginning with the pending complaints regarding the dysfunctional street lights.
It may be recalled that in the Dehradun Municipal area, a large number of complaints were being received about the non-repair of a large number of faulty streetlights. This contract had been awarded on the basis of a bid to EESL but it is alleged that the company was not taking its responsibility seriously. As a result, a backlog of over 3 thousand pending complaints regarding the street lights was created even when under the contract, the company was required to repair the lights within 48 hours of receiving the complaint.
Taking a serious note of the deficiency on part of the company and its callous attitude, District Magistrate Savin Bansal had summoned the CEO of EESL and had reprimanded him, also warning him of initiating legal action against the company. It may also be pertinent to point out here that the company’s call centre and payment cell were operating from Delhi, which also adversely affected the functioning of the company’s operations in Dehradun. It is also alleged that there was no transparency in the work and despite past warnings, the system was not improving. As the complaints kept piling up, the people were naturally blaming the Nagar Nigam for not redressing their complaints. In view of the situation,
When the system did not improve, the DM had announced cancellation of the contract awarded to EESL. In order to resolve the backlog of complaints regarding faulty street lights, 35 teams from the Nagar Nigam will start visiting the wards on a roster basis and repair the street lights from tomorrow onwards. The teams have been directed to assemble again at the Nagar Nigam office in the evening after the work and where the attendance of the employees engaged in the repair will be marked.
