BHUBANESWAR: International Finance Corporation (IFC), a member of the World Bank group, on Saturday signed an agreement with Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation (BMC) for developing an energy-efficient streetlight project. The aim is to reduce the energy bill of the BMC and expand the streetlighting service to areas hitherto not covered. IFC will provide transaction advisory services to the urban civic body and help it develop the request for proposal (RFP) document, select PPP partner and ground an economically-viable model for the project. The project is estimated to cost Rs. 22 lakh and this will be shared by the State Government and BMC on 70:30 ratio. IFC will take a year’s time to complete the exercise and another year to implement the project. Energy Service Company (ESCO), a special project vehicle (SPV), will be launched to execute the programme and the savings accrued from the project will be utilised in infrastructure development. The SPV will take a share from the savings, said Minister of State for Housing and Urban Development Sarada Prasad Nayak. While the current monthly BMC bill for streetlighting is about Rs. 40 lakh, many areas under the civic body are without streetlight. The poor financial condition of BMC does not permit it to extend the streetlight facility . A system will be developed wherein a timer will be fixed on each pole to facilitate automatic switch off of the streetlight in the morning. Besides, required number of streetlights will glow in the night when there are no public activities, the Minister said. The Minister requested the IFC representatives to ensure that the project is completed six months ahead of the schedule so that the sitting corporators could provide necessary assistance to the programme before going to election. The agreement was signed between Deputy Commissioner of BMC Priyadarshi Mohapatra and Director, IFC-South Asia, Thomas S Davenport in the presence of the Minister.
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