The Centre’s scheme of providing affordable lighting accessory to electricity consumers has been a grand success as the two-month-old scheme crossed 1-million mark of lED bulb sale with numbers going up every second since the sale started in various parts of Jharkhand.
The achievement of its type would be repeated in rural area also as the Jharkhand Bijli Vitran Nigam limited (JBVNl) has decided to start sale in rural pockets of Jharkhand in later phases. The 9-watt bulb is being currently sold at Rs100 through the fixed points of sale and at special camps set in populated colonies.
“The primary objective of the scheme is to save cost of electricity purchase and we have succeeded in doing so. The response has been excellent at all places because it’s a win-win situation for all as the consumers are getting lED bulb at very affordable price and it has reduced our cost per unit of electricity purchase. Officials from all districts are procuring bulb in great numbers,” said Superintending Engineer (Commercial) of JBVNl, Rishi Nandan.
The combined lED sale till the time of writing the report had reached 10,80,779 at seven locations—Ranchi, Ramgarh, Hazaribagh, Chas, Dhanbad, Deoghar, Dumka—and 103 points of sale spread across the seven places in Jharkhand. Nonetheless, the mission before the JBVNl is to lighten households of nearly 27-lakh electricity consumers with the cost effective bulb. According to a rough estimate, the department has been successful in cutting cost on electricity purchase by one rupee for each unit purchased. Unconfirmed estimates suggest a reduction of 90MW in electricity purchase per day.
Even as the affordable bulb offers a suitable alternative to more costly variant being sold in open market, electricity consumers in Ranchi have gracefully accepted the central government’s initiative by purchasing more lED bulbs compared to any other district. Sale of lED bulbs has reached 5,41,322 since the bulb started attracting people to the counters.
“Savings in electricity bill and the quality of light is coming at a price which no one can get in market. Price is like icing on the cake. I purchased it right at my door step during a special camp set in my locality. Hope it will last,” said resident of Morhabadi, Atma Nand Singh.
Notwithstanding the high sale figure for Ranchi, there is more scope for the department to improve sales figure in the capital which has the highest number of electricity consumers in the State. Over 5-lakh lED bulb has been purchased by 62,000 consumers (about 20 per cent) thus around eight bulbs per consumer. The scheme was started from November 23 will continue on mission mode until all consumers are covered under the scheme. It was inaugurated on November 15 by Chief Minister, Raghubar Das.