Civic body floats number to 'inform about irregularities with any lamp post across city'

Kolkata: Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) will use earth megger — a special instrument for determining leakage and checking whether earthing system is properly in place with the lamp posts in the city.

Mayor Firhad Hakim on Saturday appealed to the citizens of Kolkata to send a WhatsApp message in the number 8335999111, if they come across irregularities with any lamp post and feel that it may trigger electrocution on touching. In the recent past there have been three deaths due to electrocution in the city – in Haridebpur, Entally and Rajabazar areas in the city.

"I have issued necessary directions for procuring one earth megger machine each for all the 144 wards in the city. The process of procurement through proper tendering has already been started," Hakim said.

KD Banerjee, professor, Department of Instrumentation and Electronics Engineering has suggested to the Mayor for using such device to curb the incidents of electrocution through lamp posts. Hakim after the 'Talk to Mayor' interactive programme called up Professor Banerjee and informed him that KMC is embracing the same. He thanked Banerjee for the suggestion.

The KMC has already asked all the councilors and officials of the Lighting department to properly check the lamp posts and verify whether earthing is fine with all such posts. Jacketing of the wires are also being done. "It is a challenging job to check every single lamp post, so if the citizens come across any such irregularities with any such post, they can click pictures and send a WhatsAapp message in the number 8335999111 so that immediate intervention can be made," Hakim said.