Cuttack, July 22: The absence of an engineer has led to a 10-month delay in execution of the Rs 34-crore street light project, in which the civic body had proposed to install light emitting diode (LED) bulbs in all lamp posts across the city.

The Cuttack Municipal Corporation aims to install the LED bulbs to reduce the electricity expenditure, apart from ensuring better road vision at night. An official source said the state government had proposed the LED project in 2014. It had, in July last year, entered into a consortium of private companies to execute the job. According to the pact, the government was to appoint a designated independent engineer in the senior rank by the end of October last year to administer the project. But, the authorities are yet to appoint the official.

However, the civic body hopes that the work will start this month. "According to the communication received from the Odisha Urban Infrastructure Development Fund (OUIDF), we expect the project to start by the end of July," municipal commissioner Bikash Mohapatra told The Telegraph today. Mohapatra said the OUIDF board had approved the appointment of the engineer. "It plans to appoint the engineer by the end of July. So, we expect the survey to start soon after."

"Changing street lights to LED bulbs is expected to reduce the expenditure by 50 per cent," corporation engineer Umakanta Gadanayak said. "We spend around Rs 50 lakh a month for electricity and another Rs 1 crore on maintenance in a year," he added.