In about a year from now, Central Delhi is set to see a major dip in power consumption to the extent of 33 million units. With a campaign called “Mission Palika Navjyoti,” the New Delhi Municipal Council (NDMC) has decided to replace all its households, buildings, and street lights with lED lights to save power consumption.
To start with, the civic body has decided to gift its 12,000 employees with three lED bulbs each, instead of Rs94 lakh worth sweets on Holi which it had been traditionally distributing, drawing much criticisms from all quarters. Besides, it will also be facilitating the use of these bulbs through the Domestic Efficient lighting Programme (DElP), introduced by the Central Government on January 5.
“We distribute sweets to our safai karamcharis (sanitation workers) every year on Holi. But, this year we will replace the sweets with lED lights,” said NDMC chairperson Jalaj Shrivastava. An RTI application last year had revealed that the civic body had distributed sweets worth Rs94 lakh to its staff on Holi. The NDMC had later justified the high ‘sweet budget’ by saying the authorities decided that distribution of sweets on Holi will not be limited to sanitation staff and would include all employees of the civic body.
This year the NDMC has decided to distribute lED bulbs to its employees on the festival. “In order to encourage our employees to conserve energy, we will distribute 3 lED bulbs to each of them on Holi,” he said, adding, the normal usage of a household includes five bulbs on an average. The employees will be encouraged to purchase two more bulbs on their own, Srivastava said. He, however, didn’t reveal the budget for the distribution.
Prime Minister Modi had launched a scheme on Monday for distribution of lED bulbs under the Domestic Efficient lighting Programme (DElP). As per the scheme, light-emitting diode (lED) bulbs will be provided to all domestic consumers at an initial payment of Rs 10 each, recovery of which will be done in 12 months from their electricity bill.
Hence, the cost for an lED bulb to domestic consumer will be Rs 130 through the programme due to bulk procurement, compared to the current open market retail price in the range of Rs350-Rs600 for lED bulbs. Households in the New Delhi area consume around 24 million units of power each year. “We have 41,000 domestic consumers in NDMC area. These consumers use 66 million units of power on lighting only. If these households shift to lED lights then the power consumption will slash to half and will settle around 33 MU,” added Shrivastava.