NEW DELHI: After achieving a milestone of distributing 3 crore LED bulbs under domestic lighting scheme, Power Minister Piyush Goyal today said the price of these lights will be brought down to Rs 44 per unit in coming days.
“We will encourage the Make In India campaign and aim to bring down the prices of LEDs to Rs 44 per unit. Earlier I had talked about it in lighter vein. But now this is the new target for us,” Goyal told reporters.
The state-run EESL has been able to procure LED bulbs for Rs 73 as of June, down from Rs 310 in February 2014, a reduction of over 75 per cent.
Goyal also urged the representatives from the lighting industry to reduce retail prices of LED bulbs, which are still ruling as high as Rs 300.
He was speaking at an event organised by Energy Efficiency Services Limited (EESL) to mark the distribution of three crore LED bulbs under government flagship initiative, the Domestic Efficient Lighting Programme (DELP).
The scheme is running in six states –- Rajasthan, Delhi, Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh and Himachal Pradesh — and is rapidly expanding across all other states, an EESL press release said.
According to the statement, the three-crore bulbs distributed will result in an annual energy savings of 4 billion Kwh, capacity addition avoidance of 900 MW and cost savings of Rs 304 crore and has impacted 90 lakh consumers.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi had launched the DELP scheme in January, which will be executed across 100 cities. Through this scheme, residential consumers are provided with high quality LED bulbs given at a concessional rate of Rs 100-105 against the market price of Rs 350-450.
Goyal also said: “Over the next few years, India will see a fivefold increase in the electricity demand. A scheme like DELP is an example of India’s commitment to ensuring energy access and its continued efforts towards combating climate change.”
India has made an international commitment to reduce its carbon emission intensity by 30-35 per cent. Building capacities while adopting and deploying new energy efficient technology, and other technologies to reduce carbon emissions is one of the mitigation strategies that India has.
Saurabh Kumar Managing Director EESL, said: “We are distributing more than 15 lakh LEDs every week.”
The target of the DELP is to replace all the 77 crore incandescent bulbs sold in India with LED bulbs. This will result in reduction of 20,000 MW load, energy savings of 105 billion KWh and Green House Gas (GHG) emissions savings of 80 million tonnes every year.
The annual saving in electricity bills of consumers will be Rs 40,000 crore, considering an average tariff of Rs 4 per kWh. (PTI)
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