The Vadodara Municipal Corporation (VMC) bagged yet another national award on Friday. The civic body has been awarded the National Energy Conservation Award-2010 for its streetlight project.

This is the second time that VMC has bagged the coveted award for which civic bodies from across the country compete. In 2008, VMC had won the award for the first time. It was also the first time that the awards were instituted making the civic body the first recipient of the award.

VMC commissioner M K Das said in the year 2010 itself the civic body had saved 114 lakh units power. This implied a saving of Rs 4.54 crore for the civic body. "The VMC was chosen for the award again as it has maintained consistency in efficiency and power savings," Das said.

The VMC has installed power efficient streetlight material and has also used Intelligent Streetlight Controllers that use GSM technology for streetlights. It dims or brightens streetlights from a central control room in the city as per requirements. Earlier, the civic body used to switch off alternate streetlights to conserve energy. This led to dark and bright batches on roads.

Besides saving money, the system has also led to less green house gas emissions. Vadodara being a strategically sensitive city, the streetlights can be switched off in no time in case of a possible air raid. 

The award will be given to the VMC at a function in Delhi on Tuesday. This is the fourth national-level award to be won by VMC in the recent past. Recently, the civic body had stormed the annual awards under the JNNURM scheme by winning three key awards. The city got awards for project implementation, improvement in water supply and waste water sector and implementation of the three pro-poor reforms.

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