Chandrakanti dedication today

Amaravati: The state government is going to conduct Panchayat Raj Diwas on a grand note on Tuesday. Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu will be attending a meeting in East Godavari district where he will dedicate Chandrakranti Programme to the people of the state and also declare the East Godavari district as ‘first LED street lighting district in India’.

The Chandrakanti programme aims at replacing around 25 lakh conventional street lights in 13,000 gram panchayats with LED lights. The government has already fixed 6.5 lakh LED lights in urban areas and planned to retrofit 15 lakh LED lights in rural areas by June.

According to statistics, around 3 lakh street lights in 1,069 gram panchayats in East Godavari district have been retrofitted, highest compared to any other district in the country. The Energy Efficiency Services Ltd (EESL) has installed the LED street lights in place of conventional electricity bulbs.

However, principal secretary for panchayat raj and rural development K Jawahar Reddy said that except a few very remote locations in few villages, LED street lighting in all the other gram panchayats in East Godavari district was completed as per the existing infrastructure system.

The energy department said that Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu would attend the Panchayat Raj Diwas programme at Dwarapudi village in East Godavari district on April 24 where he would dedicate Chandrakranti programme to the people and also declare the East Godavari district as ‘first LED street lighting district in India’.

According to the energy department, the Chief Minister said the state government had been putting in consistent efforts in providing basic amenities like water, roads, housing and adopting the global technologies in LED street lighting aiming improvement of living standards of rural people on par with urban areas.

He said that AP had been a pioneer in LED street lighting programme with replacing over 6.2 lakh LED street lights in Urban Local Bodies (ULBs) with estimated energy savings of 133 MU (million units). “I wish the gram panchayat LED project would create more records and will make AP No 1 state in rural LED street lighting as well,” he said.

Minister for IT and panchayat raj and rural development Nara Lokesh said the gram panchayats need not make any investment in LED programme and no burden would be imposed on them for the maintenance for 10 years.

Panchayat raj and rural development director Ranjith Basha, project co-ordinator Y Pardesi Kumar, APSEEDCO managing director A Chandrasekhara Reddy participated in the interaction with the Chief Minister.