Who does it......?

Amid all the development going on in the city, there is still an area where lots needs to be done. Take an evening flight out of Trivandrum and look down, you will understand. Or take a night tour of the city. With all its wide roads, Trivandrum still has woeful street lighting. Even stretches of arterial road are ill-lit. From a flight, the city's street lights seem dimmer than those of a much smaller town.

The current situation has stemmed from a curious arrangement, where the Kerala State Electricity Board owns, maintains and operates the lights while the Trivandrum Corporation pays for them. Now, when we take two organisations and share a task between them, it is usually the inefficiencies which get multiplied and that's the case here, sadly for us. The KSEB always claims that the bills have not been paid while the Corporation claims the Board is sitting around on its hands rather than install new lights or even repair blown ones.

The result is evident. Large stretches of city roads, cast into darkness once Sol bids us adieu each evening. Eventhough most roads are in good shape, the lack of light makes motoring difficult and dangerous, especially since crossing pedestrians are visible only at the least minute and any pothole or bump only with a jarring crash or unsettling knock.

And if all this was not ludicrous enough, things just keep getting worse. We have all seen and marvelled at the brilliantly lit Kowdiar Avenue, the prototypical road of the Capital City Road Development Programme. But there are several other stretches...mostly along the Palayam Airport and Vellayambalam - Palayam corridors where the median lamps have been erected for months now. And yet, none of them are lighted up. The roads there, in most cases, are still plunged in darkness!

It makes wonder, what kind of organised society we live in and what kind of organised governance we have, when such anarchy prevails! Hope that like the proverbial silver lining, sense finally does prevail and the babus work out the mathematics of the rupees and paise to finally switch on the lights.

Thamasoma Jyothir Gamaya, Asothama Sath Gamaya!