Udupi : Udupi to be sodium lamp-free city by Novembersaid, Meenakshi Bannanje, president of Udupi City Municipal Council (CMC) on Thursday.

Speaking to presspersons here, Ms. Bannanje said the CMC had been systematically replacing sodium lamps in the city in phases since the last one year.

Of a total 15,938 street lamps in the city, 1,773 were sodium lamps. Of these 1,773 sodium lamps, 1,144 lamps had been replaced with LED lamps in the city. This measure had resulted in a saving of over Rs 4 lakh per month in electricity bills for the CMC.

So far, the CMC had saved a total of about Rs 53.21 lakh owing to the measure. “We are saving nine lakh units of power owing to switching from sodium to LED units,” she said.

Only 229 more sodium lamps needed to be replaced in the city. That too would be done within November.

“We have already floated tenders for another 400 LED lamps,” Ms. Bannanje said.

D. Manjunathaiah, CMC Commissioner, said that Udupi city has bagged the certificate of being an open defecation-free in the State for the second consecutive year, as per a survey done by the Quality Council of India and Swachh Bharat Mission–Open Defecation-Free Campaign.

Udupi is the first CMC in the State among the municipal bodies having a population between one and five lakh in the State to be declared as open defecation-free, he said.