Says a traffic police official manning Vikas Marg: ``The situation is especially bad these days because of the rains. The traffic is haphazard because the red lights are not working. By the time the traffic constable gets to the crossing, the flow of traffic is severely disrupted''.

``Then there are several potholes on the road. Drivers cannot see them and suddenly swerve to the left or right causing accidents and slowing down traffic on fast-moving roads. Then there are speed-breakers on roads that cannot be seen at night without street lights. Motorists, especially two-wheelers going at high speeds, get hurt on these speed breakers, but then the DVB appears to be unaware of their plight,'' he adds.

Traffic police officials say that they have written to the DVB several times asking them to ensure power supply to the street lights but their pleas have fallen on deaf ears. When asked, Delhi Vidyut Board officials blame the unlit streets on people stealing power, auto-thieves and smack-addicts. Says an east circle official: ``In most cases you will notice that street lights are not working in areas close to a jhuggi cluster. That is because jhuggi-dwellers, at times over a thousand of them, steal electricity from one line. This leads to street lights not working. Then there are smack addicts who do not realise that they will simply get Rs 30 or Rs 40 for a piece of copper they steal from the junction box. But that takes weeks to replace. And then there are auto-thieves who break the street lights only because they want to take advantage of the darkness and steal cars or rob people''.

Board spokesman Jagdish Kapoor, however, says that the board is not switching off the street lights so that houses can get power. ``No doubt there was some problem with street lights in the recent past because our attention was to ensure power supply to houses. But we did not switch off the street lights to give light to houses. The Board chairman Virender Singh along with other senior officers recently went around the city and now our emphasis is on restoring power supply street lights,'' he said.

Says Prakash Sharma, a resident of Seemapuri who works in a courier company: ``I travel almost 200 km every day and night. And it is a nightmare driving my motorcycle at night. On the Ring Road near the iron bridge there is electricity. But the moment you cross it and reach the other side of the Yamuna, it appears that you have stumbled into some remote village. No street lights are working. This is the area where several old vehicles are stranded on the road at night. Their reflectors are caked with mud and do not glow because of age. They suddenly loom large in front of you and there is very little time to swerve to any side. They can be fatal''.