The Hindu : New Delhi News : Delhi to improve street lighting

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Sep 12, 2006
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New Delhi

Delhi to improve street lighting

Staff Reporter

New Street Lighting Master Plan for the Capital prepared, says Delhi Transco

NEW DELHI: In view of the Commonwealth Games in 2010, the Delhi Government has decided to enhance the visual identity of Delhi by adopting street lighting of international standards.

A release issued by Delhi Transco Limited on Monday said that to address the problems pertaining to lighting, a Street Lighting Master Plan of Delhi has been prepared. It provides common guideline for all utilities setting down lighting quality parameters, specifications and evaluation criteria for road lighting for tenders based on specific lighting types and depending upon the type of road.

It envisages integrated architectural street lighting along with energy-saving options. "There must be proper evaluation criteria for road lighting in order to assess the energy consumption and evaluate the lux levels on different classes of roads in Delhi."

An expert committee was constituted for formulating the plan and it studied samples of various roads in Delhi, firmed up its recommendations and prepared the standard for world-class lighting for major roads of Delhi. For lighting purposes roads have been classified into three categories -- A1, A2 and A3 -- and luminance criteria based on peak and off-peak traffic conditions have been prepared.

Category A1 roads include outer city roads and flyovers which have higher traffic volumes and speed and a dual carriageway, central verge and width of individual carriageway more than 10 metres.

Category A2 would be inner city roads having lesser traffic volumes and speed and which are functional routes of single carriageway with width of individual carriageway varying between 7 and 10 metres.

Category A3 would comprise all the other roads.

The release said there is a strong focus on improvement in road transport infrastructure and for making Delhi the city with the best roads in the country. Main highways are proposed to be made free of red lights and underpasses are being constructed in different parts of the city.

"The defects in the current lighting system," it said, "are that there is a low level of lighting on all roads while the energy consumed is high. There is no proper monitoring of streetlights and the equipment used do not meet international specifications. There is also no standardisation of the type of luminaries, leading to low aesthetics and unnecessarily high lamp wattage with limited impact. Also, tree plantations along the roadsides obstruct the lighting on the road surface and also create dangerous shadows that are hazardous to traffic."

"Further there are no common lighting standards on Delhi roads," it added. "The new plan would seek to address all these problems."

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