Project nearing completion with 7-km cabling pending; MP visits work site

Mysore/Mysuru: Over three months after launching the project to lay underground insulated wires for the street-lights on the Ring Road, over 78-km of the project has been completed and only seven kilometres of cabling is to be done. All the works will be completed by Dec. 1 and the lights will finally glow from that date. After much delays, dilly-dallying on allotment of funds and shifting responsibilities, the project was launched on Aug. 15, 2022.

Insulated wires are being laid as the existing wires have been eaten by rodents in the 42.5-km long six-lane Ring Road. As the Ring Road has two rows, in all, cabling works have to be completed along 85 kilometres.

Cabling works in the 79-km stretch has been completed and this morning, Mysuru-Kodagu MP Pratap Simha inspected the progress of the works with Mysuru City Corporation (MCC) Commissioner G. Lakshmikantha Reddy and other officers.

As per the agreement reached between the 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.

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. This necessitated the laying of strong rodent bite-proof insulated wires and the fixing of LED bulbs for extra brightness.

This morning, officials and engineers briefed the MP that the project was nearing completion and per day they were fixing 200 LED bulbs. The MP asked them to fix 400 bulbs per day and speed up the work. Over 7 kms of cabling has to be completed.

The cabling works at circles and junctions are roadblock as trenches have to be dug to lay cables. Officials told the MP that as a via media instead of digging trenches and impeding smooth traffic movement, they are using a hole-boring method with machines to lay underground cables.

Pratap Simha instructed the project contractor and the officials to finish the works and be ready for the inauguration of lights on Dec. 1. “All works must be over by Nov. 30 and the lights must glow bright and continuous from Dec. 1. Also, the high-mast lights laid around Deve Gowda Circle and Ring Road Circle will be inaugurated on the same day,” Simha added.