SHILLONG: While Shillong has become the 100th city to be selected under Smart City Mission, the city despite being a capital of Meghalaya still lacks proper and illuminated street lighting system.
The Pine City of Shillong, which is widely projected as one of the most loved hill stations, embraces darkness after sunset every day, thanks to non-functional street lights all across the city, much to the consternation of local residents and tourists.
Though it is seen that many street lights in the city have been repaired, yet a large part of the city remains under darkness either due to non functional street lights or no street lights at all.
The situation goes to an extent that a high mast light which was installed at the MES point last year has now remained non-functional for last 2-3 months and no one has bothered to repair it
Some people who visit Shillong also expressed surprise over the fact the concept of high mast lights is yet to set in Shillong since only few places like Khyndailad, Motphran, Golf link, Rhino point and 101 area have the high mast lights.
People also says that though there are plenty of important junctions in the city like the IGP point which lies just next to Secretariat, DC office junction, Barik junction and even the junction near the Raj Bhawan but the street lighting in such junctions are far from satisfactory and even there are no high mast lights in such important locations of the town.
Many say that if the lighting in the city is good, it would also discourage miscreants form committing any crime but so far the street lighting in Shillong continues to be in the same old status what it was a decade back.