LAHORE: The government will replace street sodium light bulbs with LED lights on major Lahore roads to save electricity and has also banned the installation of sodium lights, Dawn has learnt.

“A number of sodium light bulbs are installed at major roads, intersections, etc., which are not only expensive but also consume electricity more than the LED lights. Therefore, it has been decided in a meeting held here on Tuesday to better go for the LED lights rather than installing and maintaining the costly sodium lights on the roads. It will help the government to conserve energy a lot,” an official source privy to the development told Dawn.

According to documents, there are 437 streetlight points at nine major roads in the city, of which 286 are operational. MM Alam Road (Firdaus Market to Hussain Chowk) has a total of 30 points, Lower Mall (Shahra-i-Pakistan, MAO College to Chouburji Chowk) 38 points, Zahoor Elahi Road (Canal to Main Boulevard), McLeod Road, Davis Road, Empress Road (American Consulate), Zafar Ali Road (The Mall to Jail Road) and Canal Bank Road (Thokar Niaz bank side) 65, 34, 92, 80, 12, 30 and 56 points respectively.

Similarly, the other 489 small and main roads having sodium lights (maintained by the MCL and other civic agencies) include 245 and 235 points. There are 22,507 sodium lights installed at these 489 roads, of which 10,137 are operational and 12,370 non-operational. The small and main roads having such lights include 55 in Data Ganj Bakhsh Town, followed by 60 in Ravi Town, 36 in Shalimar Zone, 30 in Samanabad Zone, Five in Aziz Bhatti Zone, 27 in Nishtar Zone, 16 in Gulberg Zone, two in Wagah Zone, five in Allama Iqbal Zone and nine in the MCL Headquarters Zone.

The documents reveal that these total of 22,507 sodium lights (each of 250 watts) cost Rs862 million every year in power bills. Similarly, over Rs191 million are spent on the maintenance of these lights. LED lights will reduce the bill to Rs414 million, while there would be no maintenance cost in the first year due warranty period.

Also, Rs1.120 billion will be recovered in the form of energy conservation and maintenance in the first 25 months.

Published in Dawn, June 8th, 2022