Energy Efficiency Services Limited (EESL), in its latest round of procurement, has achieved a considerable drop in LED bulb prices under Unnat Jyoti by Affordable LEDs for All (UJALA) scheme. On the last day of March, 2016 EESL has achieved a new procurement price of Rs. 54.90 (exclusive of taxes). EESL has pooled the prices of all the previous procurements and the benefit of this reduction will be directly passed on to the consumers across states. Therefore, the cost of the LED bulb has been brought down to a price range of Rs. 75 – Rs. 95 after addition of administrative costs, distribution and awareness costs along with state-specific taxes. Therefore, the variation in the final cost of the bulbs is owing to the difference in taxes across states.
The distribution price of LED bulbs will vary from each state due to the local applicable taxes. Following is the list of distribution price of UJALA LED bulbs in respective states:
| STATE | Upfront Distribution Cost of UJALA LED bulbs |
| Delhi | 75.00 |
| Haryana | 75.00 |
| Rajasthan | 80.00 |
| Karnataka | 80.00 |
| Maharashtra | 85.00 |
| Himachal Pradesh | 85.00 |
| Chhattisgarh | 85.00 |
| Odisha | 85.00 |
| Madhya Pradesh | 85.00 |
| Jharkhand | 90.00 |
| Bihar | 90.00 |
| Uttarakhand | 90.00 |
| Jammu and Kashmir | 95.00 |
The Government has ensured transparency and encouraged competition by using e-procurement of goods and services. This has resulted in significant reduction in transaction cost and time and enhanced process efficiency. This in turn has led to a much larger participation of bidders thereby increasing competition and reducing the procurement cost of LED bulbs. In the first round of procurement held in January 2014, for Puducherry, EESL achieved a cost of Rs. 310. The prices for the subsequent procurements 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 procurement price of LED bulbs, held in March 2016 was Rs. 54.90. EESL, in the past has pooled all the prices and successfully passed on this price advantage to the consumers and it will continue to do so in future as well.
The UJALA scheme is being monitored in a transparent manner through a national dashboard .As of now, EESL has distributed over 9 crore LED bulbs and the programme has led to significant savings to the country and consumers who are using these bulbs. As of date, the savings achieved are –
| Estimated daily energy savings | 3.22 crore kWh |
| Estimated reduction of peak Demand | 2,359 MW |
| Estimated daily cost reduction of bills of consumers | Rs. 12.91 crores |
| Estimated daily greenhouse gas emission reductions | 26, 151 tonnes of CO2 |
The target of the programme is to replace all the 77 crore incandescent bulbs sold in India by LEDs. This will result in reduction of 20,000 MW load, energy savings of 100 billion kWh and Green House Gas (GHG) emissions savings of 80 million tons every year. The annual saving in electricity bills of consumers will be Rs. 40,000 crore, considering average tariff of Rs. 4 per kWh.
