Centre in energy-saving mode, to provide cheap LED lamps to cities

In a bid to take energy efficiency to another level, the government has decided to make LED (light emitting diode) lamps available to the public at an upfront cost of `10 in 100 cities and to replace existing inefficient street lights with LED systems free of cost.

Updated on: Mar 22, 2015, 23:26:24 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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In a bid to take energy efficiency to another level, the government has decided to make LED (light emitting diode) lamps available to the public at an upfront cost of `10 in 100 cities and to replace existing inefficient street lights with LED systems free of cost.

The move is part of a scheme to save Rs 40,000 crore in energy bills in the next few years. The Energy Efficiency Services Limited (EESL), a government public sector undertaking (PSU), has decided to extend domestic efficient lighting programme (DELP) to 100 more cities.

As of now, the programme has been initiated in Delhi where in a household gets two LED lights at an upfront cost of Rs 10. Talance would be recovered through the monthly electricity consumption bills over a one year period at a rate of Rs 10 per month. “The LED, which has a market price of Rs 350, will carry a warranty of three months,” said a senior EESL official. The PSU has been able to provide the 7-watt LED light at one-third of the market price because it has been able to bring down the cost of the lamp from Rs 400 per piece in 2013 to Rs 104 in 2015. The official said the procurement of millions of lamps for 100 cities would further reduce the cost, thereby making LED lights affordable and competitive.

As per official estimates, domestic power accounts for half of the total electricity consumption of major cities and the programme will help in reducing consumers’ power bills by 15-20%. It is estimated that on an average, two LED bulbs will replace an incandescent bulb and a compact fluorescent lamp (CFL).

The government has envisaged a model wherein existing street lights — which account for 20% of power consumption of cities — will be replaced by LED lights in 100 cities free of cost. Under the model, the EESL will install the lights and the municipal bodies will have to share the subsequent savings on account of lesser energy bills with the PSU for the next three to five years.

Officials said the model implemented in some of the government buildings showed that the entire cost of installation of the new system is recovered in three years and the PSU also earns some money.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chetan Chauhan
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.Read More

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