October - December 2012 - National Institute of Rural Development

422 D Rajasekhar and R ManjulaThe total number of streetlightsinstalled in all the 33,098 habitations in theState was 1,136,452 in 2002-03. The numberof streetlights per habitation in the State was34 (Table 1). Since the total number ofstreetlights installed in a habitation is functionof the size of habitation and bargainingpower of the GP, one can expect inter-districtvariations in the number of streetlightsinstalled in each GP. The average number ofstreetlights installed varied from as low as15 in Chikmagalur to as high as 82 in Gadag.Since the average size of villages is generallylarger in northern Karnataka, the averagenumber of streetlights installed was higherin all the districts in this region than the Stateaverage. On the other hand, the average sizeof the village is known to be small in thehilly (Malnad) region. In these districts, thenumber of installed streetlights in each GPwas lower than the State average. Thus, theinstallation pattern followed the size of thevillage, except in the case of developedcategory of districts, where the average sizeis generally large (particularly in Belgaum,Bellary and Dharwad) and this resulted in thelarger number of streetlights per habitation.The norm in the State is that grampanchayats should install 10 to 15 streetlightsfor every 100 households at a distance of 35metres between two light poles (GoK n.d.).In other words, one streetlight should beinstalled for every 7-10 households. Thisnorm was met only in 18.5 per cent of GPsin the State (Chart 1). The proportion of GPsinstalling a streetlight for less than sevenhouseholds was higher in backward districtsas compared to developed districts. Quite afew GPs from highly developed or developedhave had under-coverage. In other words,one streetlight was provided for more than15 households (Chart 1).Chart 1: Distribution of GPs by Number of HouseholdsCovered for Every One Installed StreetlightJournal of Rural Development, Vol. 31, No. 4, October - December : 2012