Vientiane's street lighting

Today let's come back to my life's story. I told about the story of my work in Luang Prabang in 1993 to 1997 in the previous articles. Now I will tell you about my work in Vientiane. In 1997 Laos capital was called Vientiane prefecture. The street lighting in the capital was not improved since 1975. In the capital street light could be seen in a few main roads. The roads were also not in good condition.

That year there was a big plan for road improvement as well as street lighting. My company was hired for street lighting design for six roads. At that time I worked as an AutoCAD draftsman. I began to get acquainted to new terms like: street lighting lamp, street lighting fixture, hand holes, ... I had opportunity to work with French specialists who told me how they design street lighting in France.

Now the improvements of many roads in that project was completed together with new street lighting with yellow light replacing the old street lighting lamp with white color light.

EDL offers help with problem bills

Electricity users are welcome to check their bills at the office of the Electricite du Laos (EDL) if they have any queries, an official from the enterprise said on Monday.
EDL staff are there to help consumers solve problems if they feel anything on their monthly electricity bill is not clear, Mr Somphone said.
“We have full information on all electricity bill payments from 2003 to 2007,” he said.
Many people come to ask staff at EDL about the rates charged for the electricity they consume in a particular month, especially if the amount of power they consume seems to be the same as normal.
Mr Duangphachanh, a resident of Dongsavad village in Sisattanak district, Vientiane , is one such person.
He said he regularly paid about 140,000 kip per month from January to July this year, but last month received a bill for 900,000 kip.
“I was shocked when I received the bill,” he said.
He said he did not understand why his bill was so high, as he had not bought any extra electrical appliances for use in his house.
He called the electricity office to check his metre, and the staff who came said the device was working fine. They advised him to check with the EDL office.
When he did so, he was told he had not paid his bill for the past two months. He looked into the matter further and received a different answer.
“I was told that the bill for August should not be 900,000 kip, but 500,000 kip,” he said.
However, he had already paid the 900,000 kip as stated. “I'm still investigating the matter with EDL,” he said.
He said it was possible that charges could rise from 140,000 to 900,000 kip if electrical appliances or wiring was old and malfunctioning.

By Khonesavanh Latsaphao (Latest Update September 04, 2007)
http://www.vientianetimes.org.la/FreeContent/FreeContent_EDL.htm