The Kolkata Municipal Corporation is in talks with an IT-services behemoth to modernise the city’s street lighting system.

It is planning a mechanism that will send auto-generated alerts whenever a street light conks out, the mayoral council member in charge of the civic body’s lighting department said on Monday.

About 5 per cent of all street lights — there are 3 lakh across the city — remain out of service at any point in time.

Sandip Ranjan Bakshi, a mayoral council member, said repairs were delayed now because the alert about malfunctioning street lights often reached the civic body days later.

“We are planning to digitise the street light system of Calcutta to get faster information on malfunctioning lights. It will be a centrally monitored system,” Bakshi said during the discussion on the KMC budget on Monday.

Mayor Firhad Hakim presented the KMC budget for 2026-27 on Friday.

“We have spoken with Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) about creating a system by which our engineers will be able to know instantly when a street light goes out of order. They will create a panel in the zonal offices where the alerts will show,” Bakshi later told journalists.

The KMC’s lighting department comprises four zones, each with its own zonal head office. The panel that will receive the alerts will be set up in these zonal offices.

“We want a pilot project on how the system works to be implemented. It will be done in Alipore and Kalighat. If we are happy with the system, we will implement it across the city,” Bakshi said.

Further progress on the matter is unlikely to occur before the Assembly elections scheduled for this summer, but some progress may be made before the KMC elections later this year, sources said.

Monday’s budget discussions had moments of heated arguments between the ruling Trinamool and the Opposition.

A comment by a Trinamool councillor directed at a senior BJP councillor led to protests by the Opposition.

Chairperson Mala Roy intervened and rebuked the Trinamool councillor. Another senior Trinamool councillor came over from his seat and pacified the angry Opposition councillors.

During Monday’s discussions, the CPM’s Nandita Ray pointed out gaps in the budget document. Ray said the budget did not mention how many vacancies the civic body had.

“You are stressing on mechanisation, but if you do not have enough hands, services will suffer, especially in areas like solid waste management,” Ray, the councillor of Ward 103, said during the discussions.

She also expressed disappointment that the budget document does not mention 100-day workers who play a crucial role in providing civic services.

“These are the people who go door-to-door for surveillance of vector-borne and other diseases. They are hired on a no-work-no-pay basis, but the budget does not say anything about them. Please look into their plight, see if they can have stipulated holidays,” she said.

These workers only have breaks on Sundays, and no other holidays, the KMC employees have, she said later.

The discussions will continue on Tuesday. The budget session will conclude with mayor Firhad Hakim’s reply.