India could be the first nation to replace all incandescent light sources with Light-Emitting Diode (LED) lights by 2019 that are cheaper and will lower energy consumption. If this fructifies, the country will save Rs 40,000 crore ($400 billion) per year, according to Power Minister Piyush Goyal.
State-run Energy Efficiency Services Ltd (EESL) on Wednesday signed an agreement with Indian oil companies such as Indian Oil Corporation Ltd, Bharat Petroleum Corporation Ltd and Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Ltd, to sell its LED bulbs, tubelights and fans at more than 54,500 petrol pumps, BloombergQuint reported.
"This effort will help us ... India will probably be the first country in the world which will be 100 per cent using LED for its lighting needs by 2019. It will be message that India acts rather than making big promises," said Piyush Goyal.
Consumers buying these power-efficient products will not have any EMI facility but the facility will be launched at petrol pumps in Delhi, at first.
Distribution of the power saving products will begin from the states of Uttar Pradesh and Maharashtra and retailing of such energy saving equipments would eventually reach all the petrol pumps across the nation.
Oil Minister Dharmendra Pradhan said that petrol pumps will soon have common service centres (CSC), which will make the place one stop solution for daily needs of the commoners. The CSC provides basic online services at one point which involves Aadhaar enrolment or updation and payment of power and telecom bills.
Consumers can buy high quality 9W LED bulbs for Rs 70, 20W LED for Rs 220 and five –star rated fan for just Rs 1,200. At present, over 25.5 crore LED bulbs, more than 30.6 lakh LED tubelights and about 11.5 lakh energy efficient fans have been distributed in the country under UJALA scheme—that saves energy over 3,340 crore kWh.
