Marine Drive will get back its yellow glow by the middle of this month.
Marine Drive will get back its yellow glow by the middle of this month. The Energy Efficiency Services Ltd (EESL), which is installing the LED lights on the iconic road, has said it would install yellow LED street lights by January 20.
The high court has directed the civic body to replace white LED lights with yellow ones across the small stretch of Marine Drive to get illumination evaluated. Accordingly, lux measurement of yellow LEDs was checked on four street poles near Wankhede Stadium and it was submitted to the heritage committee a couple of months back. Accordingly, the BMC decided that white LEDs would be replaced by yellow LED street lights on entire Marine Drive road from Nariman Point to Walkeshwar.
A senior official from the EESL said, “The yellow LED lights at Marine Drive were required to be made according to certain specifications. It was a customised order, which demanded precise designing and mapping. The lux levels will also have to be matched for the traffic. Hence there was a delay in completing it. However, now all the stock is ready and the street light will be installed latest by January 15-20.”
In January last year, the BMC had replaced sodium vapour lamps with white LED lights on the Marine Drive stretch, claiming that LED lights would be energy efficient and cost-effective. However, the decision was mired in controversy. Shiv Sena nominated corporator Avkash Jadhav, who had opposed the installation of LED lights, said, “The municipal commissioner’s intervention has come very late, but thankfully he understood the relevance of the issue.”
