MAPUSA
Residents of Calangute and tourists visiting the popular beach destination in the State are facing inconvenience due to non-functioning of street lights in the beach village for the last several months.
Locals have complained that an entire ward and sometimes the whole village remains in darkness due to faulty street lights.
“The street lights have not been functioning for the past several months and no one is bothering to repair them. It is all the more dangerous for the commuters as the roads are also in bad condition,” a local informed.
The situation assumes significance as tourism season is expected to kick off from next month onwards.
Calangute Sarpanch, Joseph Sequeira admitted that the panchayat has been inundated with complaints of non-functioning of the street lights in the village.
He said the street light “controllers” (timers) installed by a private company were not working mostly in the evenings which at times left an entire ward in darkness.
“The street lights were on the blink for the last several months. In fact, we had written to the electricity department about the problem of the street lights at least two months back but the concerned engineers have failed to attend to the problem,” Sequeira said.
He said earlier the village panchayat used to look after the street lights but since the electricity department has now taken over the task it has outsourced the job to a private company.
“The local residents do not know that maintenance of street lights is taken over by the power department. They come and yell at the panchayat staff over non-functioning of the street lights,” he said.
The electricity department has outsourced the job to maintain the street lights to Schnell, a private company.
