Department of posts, the most widely distributed postal system in the world with maximum reach in rural areas has come up with latest offering in its product and services basket other than postal services in Jharkhand lED bulb. In a Press conference on Thursday, Anil Kumar, Director General of Posts (sales and Business Development), Jharkhand Circle, unveiled the new 9-Watt capacity ESSEl lED bulb which the postal department will start selling across Jharkhand through all its 3,101 post offices in the state from this month itself.
Kumar informed that Jharkhand circle of Postal Department has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with government owned Energy Efficiency Services limited (EESl), which will supply lED bulbs to the department. This bulb has been priced `85 after government subsidy, which is around one-third of similar capacity lED bulbs available in the market, making it cheapest one. Anyone with an identity card can buy any number of bulbs with 3-year replacement guarantee, which will not be applicable if bulb gets broken.
Kumar informed that the department had started selling this lED bulb from March this year through 60-65 post office counters as a pilot project. Under pilot project, we chose 41 post offices from Ranchi city and rest from Dhanbad. “The response of this pilot project was overwhelming, as we saw a demand of over 1,000-1,200 bulbs every day. This is why we decided to launch the sale of this lED bulb through all our post offices as early as June itself,” he said.
According to Kumar, this 9-Watt lED bulb emits similar light compared to 18-23 Watt capacity CFl bulb or 100-Watt capacity of any filament bulb. It saves power up to 90 per cent in comparison to a normal filament bulb (which has been extensively used in rural areas of not only Jharkhand, but in whole country, as that one is as cheap as `10), which is not only unfriendly to environment, but also notorious for reducing eye-sight and consuming huge amount of power.
An official from EESl informed that the company has aimed at selling 2.5 crore units of lED bulbs in Jharkhand in this phase. In this, it has succeeded in selling more than 60 lakh units, which has resulted in saving 157-Megawatt electricity at peak hours, saving around `86 lakhs everyday.
Kumar said that postal department is ready to launch some other energy efficient products including electric fan also in home appliances category very soon.