Streetlights near CSMT to adorn heritage look

Mumbai: The streetlights near the two famous heritage sites — Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Terminus and Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) headquarters — will soon adorn a heritage look. The new poles will be made of Maia design and will be imported from Italy. The estimated cost of installing these poles will be Rs 96 lakh and the work is expected to complete by March 2018.

Presently, there are 32 poles in the area, of which 22 are streetlights and 10 are signals. “To boost the grandeur of the locality, international standard poles with a design that corresponds to the heritage of the buildings around it will be installed. The number of poles will be reduced from 32 to nine. Of these, five will be used for streetlights, having a height of 39.37 ft and the other four will be used for traffic signals,” said Kiran Dighavkar, assistant municipal commissioner, A ward.

Though the number of poles and lamps is less, their illumination power will be 10 per cent higher. This will also help save electricity, Mr Dighavkar added. The existing 22 streetlights use 36 sodium vapour lamps of 150 watt each, providing average illumination of 30 lux. The new poles will have total 20 LED lamps with each lamp having a capacity of 136 watt. These lamps are expected to provide illumination of 34 lux. The lux is the unit of illuminance, measuring luminance flux per unit area.

The proposed heritage poles will be galvanised with a special gray paint, making them anti-rust. The life span of these polls will be 25 years. They will also have a facility of installing a traffic signal on the lower side, so that if needed, the number of traffic signals can be increased without increasing the number of poles.