• Claims unpaid cost passed on to consumers via tariff revisions 

The Electricity Consumers’ Association (ECA) has called on the relevant authorities to ensure that electricity bills for streetlights are paid on time, claiming that the public is unfairly burdened by the cost.

Speaking to The Daily Morning, the ECA General Secretary Sanjeewa Dhammika said that there are currently more than 700,000 streetlights across the country. He added that the responsibility for paying the electricity bills for these lights lies with institutions such as the Road Development Authority (RDA), and Local Government (LG) bodies (municipal councils, urban councils, and pradeshiya sabhas).

“These streetlights use around 150 gigawatt hours of electricity each year. It costs about Rs. seven billion. But, the authorities responsible for paying these bills are not doing so properly. As a result, the unpaid cost is being passed on to regular electricity consumers through electricity tariff revisions. We have already written to the relevant authorities to ensure that these bills are settled on time," Dhammika noted.

The Ceylon Electricity Board's Media Spokesperson, engineer Dhammike Wimalaratne was not available for comment.

According to available data,street lighting consumes about 1.5% of the total demand for electricity in Sri Lanka. Most of the street lamps out of the estimated 700,000 installed are hung on medium voltage or low voltage poles used in the distribution network, and dedicated street lighting poles are limited to urban areas.