Mysuru: The trial lighting of LED streetlights on Outer Ring Road will be held tonight and the formal inauguration of the project will be done tomorrow night. Works to light up the 42.5-km long six-lane Ring Road have been completed and from tomorrow, commuters on this perpetually dark stretch can breathe easy and travel safely.

Insulated wires have been laid replacing the wires that have been eaten away by rodents. As the Ring Road has two rows, in all, cabling works have been completed along the 85-km stretch. The project entails fixing of 4,818 bulbs on 2,135 electric poles.

Speaking to Star of Mysore this morning, Mysuru-Kodagu MP Pratap Simha said that as the cabling works in the 79-km stretch had been completed on Nov. 19, a deadline of Nov. 30 had been issued to the project contractor. “Works along the road have been completed and overhead lines will be drawn at Circles as it will take time to drill holes. We are ready for inauguration tomorrow as promised,” he said.

“Many control units of the project had to come from Pune and this would take time. We have made a temporary arrangement of taking the control units from BESCOM (Bangalore Electricity Supply Company Limited) and the fixing along the Ring Road has been done. Tomorrow at 11 am, I will hold a meeting with Mysuru City Corporation (MCC) Commissioner G. Lakshmikantha Reddy and other officers and will discuss the completion of finishing works,” Pratap Simha said.

MCC Superintending Engineer Mahesh said that the stretch from Manipal Hospital Junction on Mysuru-Bengaluru Highway till Nanjangud Ring Road Junction near APMC will be inaugurated tomorrow night. “We will do the trials tonight as we have finished the fixing of LED bulbs,” he said.

The cabling works at circles and junctions are a roadblock as trenches have to be dug to lay cables.

“Instead of digging cables, we are using a hole-boring method with machines to lay underground cables. As a temporary arrangement, we have drawn overhead lines to be ready for the inauguration and the lights will glow in all stretches. Drilling holes will be taken up in the next phase,” Mahesh added.

The project to illuminate the Ring Road was launched on Aug. 15, 2022 and as per the agreement reached between the Mysuru City Corporation (MCC) and Mysuru Urban Development Authority (MUDA), the latter will fund the project to lay wires and fix LED lights and sanction Rs. 12 crore while the MCC will maintain them.