PESHAWAR, Aug 26: A new system will be evolved to overcome administrative and financial problems faced by district governments in connection with the ill-planned installation of street lights, official say.

The number of installed lights mushroomed after the introduction of the local government system in August 2001. In most cases, sources said, lights were installed out of necessity as the street lighting system was in a shambles before the inception of the local government but in several instances, members of union councils spent huge amounts of money where there was no need for installing new lights.

Officials said that in most of the cases, rules had not been followed. In most cases important matters like installation of power meters or the capacity of power transformers in the areas concerned were ignored.

An official, associated with the provincial government's recently-constituted special cell set up to check the misuse of electricity and resolve issues with Wapda, said that the Wapda-cell (set up in the provincial finance department) had come to know that the average monthly electricity bill registered considerable increase in several districts because of ill-planned installation of street lights.

"In one posh locality of the provincial capital alone, more than 1,000 street lights have been installed without taking much care about the administrative and financial issues involved in it," said a finance manager of the province.

In Peshawar, there are several places where the local body institutions do not have funds to pay their monthly electricity bills. Scores of street lights have been installed on the provincial capital's Khyber Road, which connects the Grand Trunk Road with the Jamrud Road leading to Torkham on the Pakistan-Afghanistan border.

However, theses lights are illuminated only when dignitaries - foreign or Pakistani - happen to be in the provincial capital. Same is the case with hundreds of lights on the Warsak Road. People had seen lights to be working on the Warsak Road only once since they were installed more than a year ago.

An official of the Peshawar Electricity Supply Company said that the company had switched on lights along the Khyber Road on its own when the Indian cricket team was in the city. The Wapda-cell official said that the government was also considering the option of installing energy savers to overcome administrative issues.