LUCKNOW, April 17 -- The Lucknow Municipal Corporation (LMC) is currently managing nearly 2.5 lakh streetlights with just around 450 maintenance workers, leaving each worker responsible for around 555 streetlights. This severe manpower gap has emerged as the key reason behind widespread outages across the city.

LMC officials confirmed that the existing workforce struggles to keep pace with complaints pouring in daily from multiple localities. As a result, several stretches across the state capital continue to remain poorly lit for weeks and even months.

Manoj Prabhat, chief engineer (mechanical and electrical), LMC, said that the civic body attempts to address complaints daily but admitted that the scale of operations is a challenge. "W...