Project being completed in phases; full 42-km to light up by month end

Mysore/Mysuru: Post-Dasara, the first three-kilometre stretch from Manipal Hospital Junction to Mahadevapura Road Junction on the 42.5-km Ring Road glowed bright last night with LED lights. The lights on the entire stretch that is at present dark and dangerous will glow by the end of this month as the wiring and fixing of LED lights are being taken up in phases.

Mysuru City Corporation (MCC) Commissioner G. Lakshmikantha Reddy, Superintending Engineer (SE) Mahesh and other officers visited the Ring Road last night and inspected the works and the lightings. Today afternoon, MP Pratap Simha and Mayor Shivakumar were scheduled to inspect the works.

The persistent darkness on the Ring Road is one of the most and oft-discussed topics in Mysuru and there was a continuous demand from the public to light up the Road.

Taking the public demand and increased crime rate into consideration, the MCC and Mysuru Urban Development Authority (MUDA) came to an understanding with the intervention of the MP and the District Minister that while MUDA will fund the project to lay wires and fix LED lights and sanction Rs. 12 crore, the MCC will maintain them.

When the MUDA built the Ring Road in 2014, it laid over 2,135 electric poles along the Ring Road and 4,818 bulbs were fixed. Due to lack of maintenance, the underground wires were eaten away by rodents and also, gradually, the bulbs burned out.

And this is the reason why   the wiring has to be redone and new LED bulbs have to be refixed. Now, strong rodent bite-proof insulated wires are laid.

MCC Commissioner Lakshmikantha Reddy told SOM that the contractor had completed laying cables on one side of the 42.5-km road and works are on to lay the wires on another side. The poles have been laid in such a way that the lights must cover the Ring Road part and also the service road on either sides.

Monitoring, control systems

“The one-side stretch from Manipal Hospital Junction till Mahadevapura Road Junction has been completed and we wanted to test the brightness and also the area covered by the lights. The results are good and work will continue in this direction. Wiring on the other side has to be completed and LED bulbs have to be fixed. This task will be accomplished by the end of this month,” Reddy said.

Of the Rs. 12 crore MUDA grant, Rs. 6 crore will be used to lay rodent bite-proof insulated wires while the remaining Rs. 6 crore will be used to fix LED bulbs on 2,135 electric poles.

The LED lighting will be implemented with a Centralised Control and Monitoring System (CCMS) with smart meters and Internet of Things (IoT) controllers. This enables the integration of all LED lamps and they can be operated remotely through wireless communication.

Under the project, apart from 4,818 LED bulbs, 70 CCMS points will be set up along the Ring Road and to cover dark spots, 98 octagonal poles will be erected.