To save electricity, BMC to set up solar-powered poles

Mumbai In an attempt to beautify the streets of Mumbai and save electricity, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) has decided to set up solar power electric poles.

This project comes in line with BMC’s tactical urbanism plan, where the civic body aims to beautify public spaces using minimum resources.

These electric poles are made of metal and are designed to resemble a tree. Senior officials said that the solar panels are on the topmost portion of these poles and each pole has five high-power LED lights in its tree-like branches. The officials have also said that these lights have two times more luminance power than the conventional ones.

“These solar poles will be able to save upto 35 per cent of the daily consumption of regular electricity and will become cost-effective in the long run. The primary objective is also to spread awareness about using clean and renewable energy,” said Vaqar Javeed, assistant municipal commissioner and in-charge of the project.

Senior BMC officials also said that each of these poles have automatic sensors and battery backup of 12 hours. “There is no need to manually switch them on as there are sensors,” said an official.

Javeed said that initially, these poles were set up in seven prominent landmarks in the western suburbs that include some of the prominent gardens and traffic junctions like, Meentai Thackeray Garden, Shyama Prasad Mukherjee Udhyan Jijamata Chowk and within the premises of Prabodhankar Thackeray Natya Gruha.

Besides this, the BMC has also set up eight solar power electric poles at eight ‘Adivasi Padas’ (tribal neighbourhoods) inside the Sanjay Gandhi National Park (SGNP). These poles have been set up in areas which have residential clusters and didn’t have any source of electric lights till date.

Senior officials maintained that setting up of electric poles inside the forest areas is prohibited, due to which many spots inside the gardens were either poorly illuminated or didn’t have any light poles.

“We have taken permission and No Objection Certificate (NoC) from the forest department and SGNP authorities. The advantage of setting up solar lights is that we didn’t require additional poles for extending electrical cables,” said Javeed.

Kamal Jogale, a local representative of the tribal community, said, “Often there used to be accidents inside the forest area due to non-availability of lights. Local people had to be dependent on torch lights. In monsoon, snakes and other reptiles would also slither inside our houses,” said Jogale. He added that the primary advantage of solar lights is that during monsoon, there will be no fear of short circuits.