Bangalore (or also known as Bengaluru), the capital of India's southern Karnataka state will be rolling out a LED residential lighting replacement project by January, according to The Times of India and other Indian media.
The roll out is part of the Central Government’s proposal of introducing LED lighting into households under Demand Side Management Efficient Lighting Program (DELP), which is being implemented by The Energy Department to replace some 60 million LED bulbs in the state during the first phase.
Every household can buy 10 LED bulbs each at subsidized rates of INR 90 (US $1.38) to INR 100, said Energy Minister DK Shivakumar on Monday. This is about a third of LED bulb prices being sold on the market, which range between INR 350 to INR 450.
Heavy taxation has been a major hurdle for participating LED manufacturers, though, according to a Bangalore Mirror report.
Even though 90% of companies agreed to offer LED bulbs at the government price of less than INR 100, many noted they would have to be supplying bulbs from neighboring states, due to the current Value Added Tax in the state, said the minister. The VAT in the state is about 14%, reported The Times of India.
“I have assured them that we will look into that,” said “A few have even urged to promote local manufacturers too,” added Shivakumar.
According to the minister LED bulb suppliers agreed to provide guarantee of 3-years for bulbs used by domestic consumers, and a 7-year warranty for corporations and businesses, according to the Bangalore Mirror report. The Indian government will spend an estimated INR 6 billion for changing domestic lights, and INR 20 billion on upgrading streetlights to LEDs.
About 1.2 million street lights are installed throughout the Katarkana state, and 400,000 streetlights are installed in Bangalore alone.
According to Energy Efficiency Service Limited (EESL) estimates local government authorities BBMP spend INR 160 million annually on streetlights that consume 70 MW of load. If Bangalore converted its 400,000 streetlights to LEDs, the load would be halved to 35 MW.
In the second phase, the government will require urban local bodies to swap to LED lightsm reported The Times of India. About 450,000 streetlights in Bangalore and a total of 1.2 million streetlights in the State will be replaced with LEDs.
