Come Jan, power-saving LEDs to light homes across State

Come January, the State government will work towards transforming household lighting by enabling domestic consumers to replace the existing bulbs/lights in their homes with energy efficient LED bulbs.

The Energy department, which is planning to roll out the Central Government proposal of introducing LED lighting in households under Demand Side Management Efficient Lighting Programme (DELP), plans to replace six crore existing bulbs across the State in the first phase.

Each household can purchase up to 10 LED bulbs at the heavily incentivised rates of Rs 90 to Rs 100, said Energy Minister D K Shivakumar here on Monday.

The Minister, who chaired a meeting of LED manufacturers, said that his department had managed to convince the manufacturers to sell the bulbs at less than Rs 100 a bulb, to give a jumpstart to the green initiative. Presently, the market rate of these bulbs varied from Rs 350 to Rs 450. Consumers need not even go purchase the bulbs. The department will ensure that the bulbs are replaced as and when consumers place the demand. Also, the department will deduct Rs 10 per bulb in the consumers’ monthly electricity bill.

A 9 watt LED bulb will be equivalent to 14 watt CFL bulb and 60 watt incandescent bulb. The accruing energy savings will be anywhere between 50 to 80 pc.

If consumers want to replace the LED bulbs, they can purchase them at the same subsidised rates in the market. These bulbs will carry a government label, Shivakumar said

Though the manufacturers were sceptical about the proposal, owing to the heavy taxation in Karnataka on the bulbs, they had agreed to participate in the tender process, and also give product guarantee of three years for domestic bulbs and seven years for streetlights. They had contended that value added taxes in Karnataka was about 14 per cent, and it was more viable to sell the product outside the State. They also demanded that the State government give more thrust to local manufacturers. Shivakumar said that the manufacturers’ demand to reduce the VAT would be placed before the cabinet.

Streetlights
In the second phase, the government will impress upon the urban local bodies to switch over to LEDs. As many as 4.5 lakh streetlights in Bengaluru City and a total of 12 lakh streetlights across the State will be replaced with LEDs. All conventional fixtures like sodium vapours, metal halides and tube lights will be replaced. The energy savings will be around 50 pc if this is done.

Shivakumar said that an investment of Rs 600 crore would be required under DELP and Rs 2,000 crore to replace the streetlights. Energy Efficiency Service Limited (EESL), the Central government agency, which has been appointed as the nodal agency, will raise the funds, and collect the same from ULBs in phases.

The department aims to save around 800 to 1,000 MW power from these two programmes. Around 30 to 40 manufacturers participated in the meeting.