Roads stretching up to 125km to be illuminated

MYSURU: The streets of Mysuru city are likely to come alive during this year’s Dasara celebrations. Officials are planning to illuminate more than 120km roads for all 10 days of the festivities this year.
Actor Puneet Rajkumar’s silhouette is being planned with extraordinary and merging lighting and in all probabilities. It is likely to be a popular spot this season.
As district minister ST Somashekar had directed officers to plan novel things, the authorities are on their toes to make the carnival colourful like during pre-Covid years by holding meetings with stakeholders. At a recent meeting, the minister had said the festival is being celebrated in a grand manner after a gap of two years owing to Covid and hence the celebration should be impressive.
Street illumination has made it to the top of the must-sees over a period of years in Mysuru during Dasara, wherein major roads and junctions in the central business district and in prominent localities are specially illuminated. Tourists throng the spots in big numbers to witness the illumination. The city’s glory will return this season, with officials planning to illuminate the streets with use laser lighting, create silhouettes with LED lights and illuminate circles and junctions.
Mysuru is dotted with dozens of circles apart from heritage buildings, which are housing offices of government agencies. If Chamundeshwari Electricity Supply Company (Cesc) illuminates streets and circles, buildings will be illuminated by the department and the agencies concerned.
Cesc has proposed to illuminate 125km of roads covering all thoroughfares, entry and exit points of Mysuru city, circles, and have calculated the amount of energy required for the special illumination at 1.33 lakh units. This year Cesc is planning to bring in novel types of lighting to captivate visitors.
Usually, almost every road in the city will witness bumper to bumper traffic every evening to see the illumination which will be on from 7pm to 10pm. Despite Covid, the street illumination was done last year, but 100km of roads were illuminated. This time, another 25km roads are being added under the illumination plan.
CESC superintendent engineer S Nagesh told TOI that a proposal has been prepared to illuminate more than 125km of roads and all major circles. Concepts are being finalized along with sponsors. Only LED lights will be used to save energy, he added.