BEST will illuminate Mumbai Roads with smart street lights

In a step towards making Mumbai a smart city, the Brihanmumbai Electric Supply and Transport (BEST) has undertaken a proposed installation of smart automated street lights in the city. The proposed project will illuminate the island city with an Automated Streetlighting Management System (ASMS). ASMS includes installation of softwares and digitising all the 462 street lighting pillars, which are responsible for controlling all the 41,000 street lights across the island city.

The centralised control will assist BEST to enable automatic street light control with improved light intensity along with reduced power consumption. The objective behind the system is to be both cost-effective and reduce manpower.

The difference between the old street lights and the new proposed system is that the concept of ASMS requires a modern day transistor, which in turn discards the manual switching of the lights. The transistors will automatically switch on the lights as the day ends.

Earlier in 2019, the tenders for the said project were floated out and a Chennai based firm - SPJ solution bagged the contract worth of ₹5 crores. The firm will also be responsible for seven years of maintenance. It is estimated that the project will be completed in the coming six months.

Meanwhile, the BEST Committee members have opposed the proposal to give the contract to private firms. The members allaged that the management is gradually inching towards privatisation.

“The management must not that by giving the contract to a private firm it is encouraging privatisation,” BEST committee member and Congress corporator, Ravi Raja told FPJ.

He also added that there have been instances in the past when the projects were handed to private firms and they failed to yield any result. He cautioned that the management should not hand it to the private firm as if the project doesn’t materialise they will be blamed as the transport wing is already under huge debt.

On the other hand, BEST general manager, Surendrakumar Bagde asserted that the new system will give better illumination and better service to the Mumbaikars.