Enthused by the award for energy efficiency in street-lightening, the Vadodara Municipal Corporation has decided to outsource its energy auditing and has shortlisted a few companies for it.

The matter will now be put up before the standing committee on December 23.

Executive engineer (streetlights) Subodh Shah said the VMC would be the first civic body in the state to outsource its energy auditing. Shah said the concept is popular in the West and tender for the project would be floated within one month.

During a workshop on municipal energy efficiency in 2008, the matter was discussed with senior officials in Gandhinagar. The Urban Development Department had formed the Gujarat Urban Development Company Ltd. (GUDC).

In 2008 itself, the VMC standing committee and general board had passed a resolution in which powers were given to the civic body commissioner to take appropriate decision for the GUDC municipal energy efficiency project in which the VMC had participated, Shah said.

Since there was no development, a meeting was held with GUDC officials last month in which we discussed the idea of energy audit. It was then decided to implement the same in VMC as a pilot project in the state. We have already invited the Expression of Interest and six companies have come forward, Shah said, adding the entire project would take about five to seven years to complete.

The company which will be awarded the project will be responsible for taking initiatives like installation of energy-saving equipment and implementation of plans to save on energy consumption.