The Power Ministry on Wednesday successfully completed seven years of distributing and selling LED lights under its flagship UJALA programme. The initiative evolved into the world’s largest zero subsidy domestic lighting programme with more than 36.78 crore LEDs distributed across the country.
Launched in 2015, the Unnat Jyoti by Affordable LEDs for All (UJALA) succeeded in bringing down the retail price of LED bulbs from ₹300-350 a bulb to ₹70-80. The programme also resulted in massive energy savings. As of today, 47,778 Million kWh per annum energy has been saved. 9,565 MW of peak demand has been avoided, along with 3,86 crore tonnes of reduction in CO2 emissions, Power Ministry said in a statement.
Under the programme, the government ensured transparency and encouraged competition by e-procurement of goods and services resulting in a significant decline in transaction cost and time, enhancing process efficiency. With UJALA, the cost of LED bulb has come by down by 85 per cent. This, in turn has led to a much larger pool of bidders, enhanced quality of the product and availability of better specifications for the consumers, it added.
Procurement strategy
Leveraging increased industry competition and mass procurement, EESL has adopted an innovative procurement strategy which resulted in well-known benefitsand now knows as USP of Program Ujala.
Credits to UJALA, energy efficient, cost saving lighting has been made available to the middle class and lower middle-class consumers. As part of its inclusive growth strategy to enable growth in lower income communities, EESL has also enrolled Self-Help Groups (SHGs) for distribution of LED bulbs under UJALA programme.
The programme accelerated the growth of the domestic lighting industry. It encourages Make in India as domestic manufacturing of LED bulbs has increased from 1 lakh per month to 40 million per month
It also provides economies of scale to manufacturers through regular bulk procurement enabling them to bring down the cost of LEDs for retail segment as well. The procured priced has been reduced by almost 90 per cent between 2014 and 2017, from ₹310 to ₹38
The programme also garnered attention from top management schools of India. It is now a part of Leadership case study in Indian Institute of Management (IIM), Ahmedabad. Furthermore, it is also under consideration for being included in the curriculum of the Harvard Business School.