LED bulbs being provided at reasonable rates to consumers

LED bulbs being provided at reasonable rates to consumers

            Vijyender Sharma

SHIMLA----The State government has strongly refuted the reports appearing in some section of press regarding irregularities in implementation of centrally sponsored Domestic Efficient Lighting Programme (DELP) scheme in the State. An official spokesman of the State government said here today that these allegations were totally false and beyond the facts just to mislead the people.  

            He clarified that this programme was being implemented in different States including Himachal Pradesh as per the guidelines of Government of India. In Himachal Pradesh, State Electricity Board Ltd. through M/s Energy Efficiency Services Ltd. (EESL), a public sector entity under the Union Ministry of Power were implementing the programme. He said that M/s EESL had invited tender for procurement of LED bulbs as per the guidelines and firms have been selected for supplying LED bulbs through open competitive bidding, therefore complete transparency had been adopted in this process.  Moreover, HPSEBL had not participated in open competitive bidding.

            As far as rates of bulbs are concerned, the spokesman said domestic consumers were being provided three LED bulbs below the market price and they have also been given choice to pay for these bulbs with their electricity bills.  

            The Spokesperson said the  procurement in January 2016 for Madhya Pradesh was for 9W LED bulbs and EESL has been successful in bringing down the procurement cost to Rs. 64.41 (exclusive of taxes) and the benefit of this price will only be in the state of Madhya Pradesh and not anywhere else. EESL have informed that apart from the procurement costs, there are taxes and additional costs of awareness, distribution and other administration that add to the final price of the LED bulbs and hence the distribution cost will remain as Rs. 100 bulb on upfront payment in all the states including Himachal Pradesh.

            Further, Secretary to the Govt. of India, has  been intimated case study of DELP in Puducherry and Andhra Pradesh that capital cost are likely to be lower based on EESL experience that the price of LED's go down very significantly with bulk procurement on volumes. In the case of LED bulbs procurement of 75 lakh LED bulbs (in 3 tenders during 2014) has already seen prices go down dramatically from Rs 400 per piece to Rs 149, a reduction of 60 %.

            In initial procurement of 7W LED bulbs in January 2014, for Puducherry, EESL achieved a cost of Rs. 310. The prices for the subsequent procurement for other states, during September 2014 to February 2015, ranged between Rs. 204 to Rs. 104. EESL through aggregation and transparent procurement has achieved a rapid decline in LED prices. The last base price of procurement for 7W LED bulbs, held in June 2015, was a pooled price of Rs. 78. EESL has successfully passed on this price advantage to the consumers through pooling of prices.           

**VijyenderSharma*, Press Correspondent Bohan Dehra Road  JAWALAMUKHI-176031, Kangra HP(INDIA)*
 
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