ISLAMABAD, April 7: A portion of the capital city is set to be lit through solar lights since the civic authority has given approval to a local manufacturer for installing 68 lampposts along Jinnah Avenue on “zero cost” basis, Dawn has learnt.

According to details shared by a Capital Development Authority’s official, the project will help the authority lit one-kilometer long patch of Jinnah Avenue opposite NICL building in Blue Area.

The official said all financing will be arranged by the local company to manufacture, supply, install and maintain the proposed streetlights, and the CDA will have no cost to pay at any stage.

When asked how the local investor will recover the project cost, he explained: “We will grant advertisement rights to the company to recover the cost on every lamppost since the marketing boards on it will be rented out by the company to the advertisers.” The first lamppost, he said, would be installed by Sunday (today).

Commenting on the technical expertise of the company, the engineering wing official said: “All the lampposts will be 37 feet in height with 270W lights along with a battery to provide current in case of bad weather.”

The official added, “A monitoring kit will also be attached to every lamppost to enable remote operations.

It is pertinent to mention that lampposts in several residential sectors especially G-6, G-7, G-8, G-9, G-10, I-9, I-10 sectors are missing. Other than residential sectors, few flyovers like Faisal Avenue Flyover are still without lights. Moreover, a patch of over ten kilometers from Rawat to Koral Chowk (on Islamabad Highway) is also without lampposts.

“We are currently paying Rs120 million as electricity bill to the electric supply company since it has some 65,000 lampposts across the city but not all of them are working properly because the maintenance cost has also doubled with the passage time,” the official said.

Chairman CDA Farkhand Iqbal in a recent interaction with Dawn added: “The city is consuming around 25 MW to 27 MW while the electricity bill is over Rs120 million a month and the best alternative solution is LED lights project which will only cost around Rs6 to Rs7 billion and Asian Development Bank will finance 75 per cent of it.”

The ADB was also set to assist the authority in the LED project, however, after much hue and cry over the transparency issues, the bank shied away from sponsoring the project.

Despite having no financial resources the CDA is still adamant to launch it through public money and recently been given a clearance by the National Accountability Bureau (NAB). The bureau has given CDA a go-ahead with the LED project after it scrutinised and cleared the agency on concerns raised by Transparency International.