Bachat Lamp Yojna

About Bachat Lamp Yojana
Bachat Lamp Yojana is a government of India’s programme in order to reduce the compact fluorescent lamps (CFLs i.e. the energy saving lights) cost that are sold to the consumers. These are implemented through India’s power ministry of Bureau of Energy Efficiency (BEE). The goal of this programme is the delivery of CFLs at the cost of the normal light bulbs. The cost difference will be covered by the Kyoto Protocol’s sale under the clean Development Mechanism of certified emission rights.

The amount of lighting accounts to almost 20% of the total demand of electricity in the country. The needs of lighting in the country are particularly met in the household sector by incandescent bulbs. The bulbs are very energy inefficient as about 90% of the electricity gets converted into heat and only 10% of it is used in lighting.
The Compact Fluorescent lamps (CFLs) have been providing an energy-efficient alternative by using about one-fifth of the electricity as compared to incandescent lamps in order to provide illumination of the same level. Almost entire commercial market has been completely penetrated by CFLs and CFL sale in India have grown in 2003 from about 20 million to about 200 million in 2008. The CFLs penetration in the household sector as indicated by the statistics of lighting association is only about 5% to 10%. The penetration rate is relatively low which is largely because of CFLs high price and it costs about 8-10 times more than the incandescent bulbs.
In an estimation of India about the use of incandescent bulbs is that about 400 million of the light points today are lighted by it and they have been replaced by CFLs which have reduced about 10,000 MW demand of electricity.
The aim of ‘Bachat Lamp Yojana’ is the replacement of incandescent bulbs by CFLs in every household. It provides CFLs at similar price to the households as that of the incandescent bulbs. It also plans to utilize the Kyoto Protocol’s Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) to recover the differential cost of the CFLs between the market price and the price at which they the households purchases it. In February 2009, the Bachat lamp Yojana was launched.
The Bachat Lamp Yojana is designed as a partnership of a public-private sector between India’s government, CFL suppliers of private sector and the state level electricity distribution companies (DISCOMs). High quality CFLs are sold by the CFL suppliers to households at 15 Rs. per CFL with a designated area of project in the DISCOM operation region. The DISCOM region operation chooses the CFL supplier through the process of due diligence from the suppliers list of CFL empanelled by BEE. Only 60 watt incandescent lamps and 100 watt lamps will get replaced with the 11-15 and 20-25 watt CFLs. In every area of the project, the electricity savings will be monitored by BEE.
About 50 lakh CFLs are expected to be replaced in every area of DISCOM. 4 CF-lamps will get distributed at the normal price bulbs to all the customers. The CFL cost difference will be obtained through CDM by the implementing agency in CER’s form.