The Deputy Commissioner and Administrator of the Mangaluru City Corporation (MCC) announced that once the ongoing project to replace conventional streetlights with energy-efficient LED lights is completed, the city will introduce an integrated automatic switching system.

This smart system will be operated from the Command and Control Centre established under the Smart City Project. Explaining its benefits, the official said that a single switch will be able to control 30 to 40 streetlights at once. In contrast, the current system requires linemen to travel street by street to manually switch lights on and off, making it both time-consuming and inefficient.

With the new setup, all streetlights across the city’s 60 wards can be managed within just 15 to 20 minutes. During the initial phase, the system will run in a hybrid mode, combining both manual and automatic operations.

As part of the project, a total of 65,870 conventional streetlights across the 60 wards are being replaced with LED lights. Although the contractor has requested an extension, officials have been directed to ensure that the work is completed by the end of June.

The Corporation also clarified that newly developed roads, residential colonies, and areas not included in the original project will be taken up separately and managed directly by the MCC.