Now, LED bulbs set to go on sale at petrol pumps across India
New Delhi   17-Aug-2017

To expedite the uptake of energy efficient electricity appliances, Energy Efficiency Services (EESL) on Wednesday signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the three government oil marketing companies — Indian Oil Corp, Bharat Petroleum Corp and Hindustan — which would pave the way for EESL to set up retail outlets in the petrol pumps of these countries across the country. Nine-watt LED bulbs would be sold for Rs 70 a piece, 20W LED tubelight for Rs 220 and five-star rated ceiling fan for Rs 1,200 at the petrol pumps. The distribution will begin from Uttar Pradesh and Maharashtra. It will be gradually expanded to more than 55,000 petrol pumps across the country.

The MoUs were signed here between the companies in the presence of power minister Piyush Goyal and petroleum minister Dharmendra Pradhan. EESL will make the entire upfront investment to make the products available at the outlets. The OMCs will invest in manpower and space. Goyal said the tie-up represents the inter-departmental cooperation in the government and would help in achieving the goal of 100% LED-based lighting usage by 2019. Pradhan said since petrol pumps owned by the three companies have very high footfall, it would ensure LED bulbs and tubelights reach every corner of our country.

Currently, over 25.5 crore LED bulbs, 30.6 lakh tubelights and around 11.5 lakh energy efficient fans have been distributed in the country under the UJALA scheme. This has led to annual savings of over 33,400 million units of electricity and cutting peak power demand of 6,725 MW. According to government estimates, power consumers have cumulatively saved over `13,346 crore annually thorough lower electricity bills.