LED street lighting made mandatory in Delhi

New Delhi, Dec 3: Delhi Power Minister Satyendra Jain on Thursday announced that LED street lightings has been made mandatory in the city and is being implemented.

"Government has made LED street lightings mandatory in Delhi and phase-wise implementation has begun," he said in his address at the inauguration of 13th LED Expo here.

Jain emphasised that tax reduction is not the solution to bringing down prices of LED bulbs.

"Customers will move towards higher LED adoption through incentives and manufacturers should try and bring in economies of scale in production. Government is already creating a market for it and will implement stringent quality standards to boost adoption. The big purpose is to ensure energy waste reduction," he said.

Emphasising on the issue of sustainability and energy consumption, Jain said that around 60,000 MW of electricity is being used in the capital for lighting alone and pressed for efforts to reduce it by half.

Pramod Kumar, director in the union urban development nministry, said: "Urbanisation is expected to create huge pressure on availability of power and LED is one of the best solutions to mitigate concerns. This platform, with its reach, can create more awareness which will give tremendous boost to the business of LEDs."

Delhi is amongst the first to implement the domestic efficient lighting program called "Prakash Path" followed by Himachal Pradesh, Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh and Rajasthan.

Raj Manek, executive director and board member of Messe Frankfurt, said: "The continued support from the industry bodies and the government of India has strengthened our resolve to promote energy efficient lighting in India through our fairs LED Expo and Light India."

The 13th edition opened doors on Thursday with 260 exhibitors from seven countries at Pragati Maidan.

Several leading Indian and international lighting majors including FIEM, Maklites, Firefly, Victor LED, Edison Opto, Rabyate, Fulham, MLS India, Juki India, Luxmate among others are showcasing and unveiling new products at the fair.

A one-day summit on Friday alongside the fair will host a series of sessions covering 'Make in India' to promote domestic manufacturing, lowering costs and diverse application areas for LED technologies.

IANS