Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai’s (BMC) plan to upgrade LED streetlights in India's most populus city ran into trouble as former mayor Sunil Prabhu and the opposition parties questioned the tender procedure, according to a report of The Indian Express.

A meeting was held last week between senior officials of the center, state and civic body to come up with the decision to assign the LED project to Energy Efficient Services Limited, a subsidiary of Central government. The project was set to install LED lights all the over the city and suburbs in the next eight months.

Opposition leaders accused that the project’s lack of transparency as it was assigned to the firm prior to proper invitation to tender procedure.

“This is not the general practice and is completely against the rules of the civic body”, Samajwadi party leader Rais Shaikh said.

Former mayor and MLA Sunil Prabhu wrote a letter to Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis to oppose the project. “Though the initiative is for the collective good of the city, the civic body was not taken into confidence before the project was handed over to the Energy Efficiency Services Limited. By taking this step, the government has encroached upon the corporation’s power,” he said.

“The Central government should note that the civic body is capable of undertaking the project by itself. The Centre is handing over the project without following BMC’s standard procedure of inviting tenders and we completely oppose this move,” said the opposition leader Devendra Amberkar.