No streetlights in 30% of Delhi's dark spots as civic bodies pass the buck

The north corporation says these areas don't fall under its jurisdiction while the PWD argues that if that was the case then the corporation shouldn't have given an NOC in the first place

During daylight hours in Delhi, there's a clamour for women safety, by nightfall, around 2,000 spots in the national capital go under the cover of darkness. Last year, poles for streetlights were erected in these spots but are yet to have bulbs fixed on to them, rendering them useless. That is because various civic agencies haven't been able to sort out jurisdiction issues, according to a report in The Times of India.

In 2016, Safety Pin, an NGO, identified 7,428 dangerous dark spots across Delhi. Since the municipal corporations didn't have the wherewithal to handle these, the Delhi government began an initiative in July that year to install LED streetlights on their behalf. Both the north and east corporations issued no-objection certificates for the work, the report said.

"We were to just install the lights and hand them over to the corporations. The work was to take three to four months," the report quoted a PWD official as saying. 

But more than 25 months later, the Rs 220 million project is only 70 per cent complete, with 5,472 spots having been illuminated. The rest have got entangled in the proverbial red tape. 

The north corporation is refusing to take over 1,956 sites where the poles have been erected but the meters are yet to be installed, arguing that they were located in unauthorised colonies and areas that don't fall under its jurisdiction.

As per a status report by the PWD, these lightless poles are mostly located in outer Delhi, north and west Delhi. Some spots include stretches in Geetanjali Enclave, Paschim Vihar, Ashram Road, Najafgarh Road and Nihal Vihar.

A senior north corporation engineer overseeing the project said that DSIIDC and flood and irrigation department, who oversee the development works of unauthorised colonies, should take over the new streetlights.

"Whenever street-laying illumination work was carried out by the corporation in the past, the Delhi government provided additional funds. The north corporation pays nearly Rs 1 billion annually as electricity bill for its streetlights," he said.

"Meters were installed in areas under our jurisdiction. We are already facing numerous disputes in terms of electricity bills from the poles we installed earlier. It will add to the financial burden of an already cash-strapped civic body," the report quoted a senior corporation engineer as saying.

But, according to the PWD, it did the streetlighting work for the corporations and the handed over the completed sites to the corporations to run and maintain them. 

"If there was a jurisdiction issue, why did they provide a NOC," the PWD official asked. 

As the game of passing-the-buck goes on, citizens, particularly women have to endure considerable risk, as they are forced to navigate these alleys in complete darkness.