Cesc to illuminate only procession route
Unlike in the past, the Rs 218 crore loss-making Chamundeshwari Electricity Supply Corporation (Cesc) will illuminate only the procession route at a cost of Rs 40 lakh during the dasara this year.
The total cost of illumination that the Cesc incurred last year was Rs 1.25 crore for ten days of dasara and this included the illumination of the dasara procession route and also the public buildings. This it had to pay out of its own meagre pocket.
Realising that there is something amiss here, the Cesc managing director P Bore Gowda has written a letter to the deputy commissioner of Mysore that this time around the company will bear the cost of only the procession route and all the other illuminations to be done for public buildings and other private buildings should come out of sponsorship.
Speaking to Deccan Herald here on Thursday, Gowda said that the practise in the past was to fund the illumination of other public buildings from private sponsorship. “I in my earlier stint in Mysore as part of Dasara committees had sought sponsorship for the illumination of circles like KR circle, Hardinge circle, Ayurveda circle to name a few. This I found to my surprise has been stopped and now Cesc is forced to bear the cost with no assistance from the Dasara committee though it gets lot of funds for conducting dasara activities,” he said.
Even the cost of illumination of Chamundi hill and the welcome sign was being borne by Cesc though the Muzrai department is supposed to bear the cost, he said.
“Even for the procession route I will try to get a sponsorship this time of at least Rs 30 lakh. IThe problem that is not understood by many people is that the KERC will object to this unnecessary expenditure and we have to be answerable to this,” said Gowda.
However, he said that Cesc will insist for sposnsorhip for public buildings like the Crawford Hall, Law Courts, Deputy Commissioner’s office to name a few. But the bill for the energy consumed by all this will be borne by the company.
Theme based
The illumination of the procession route will be theme based this year. It will not be just a series of lights strung together through the route. Instead, ideas will be called for and even citizens can involve themselves in coming out with a theme related to Dasara and the best idea will be selected for the illumination, said Bore Gowda.
