The Government of India’s Street Lighting National programme (SLNP) has illuminated 50,000 KM of Indian roads with installation of 30 lakh LED street lights across the country.

With this milestone Energy Efficiency Services Limited, a government of India company under the administration of Ministry of Power, has become the world’s largest street light management company.

The installation of 30 lakh LED street lights has resulted in 39 crore kWh of annual energy savings, avoided capacity of over 104.19 MW to the Urban Local Bodies (ULBs). Further it has also helped in reduction of 3.29 lakh tonnes of CO2 annually.

Under SLNP, Rajasthan is leading the country with an installation of 7.85 lakh LED street lights followed by Andhra Pradesh and Gujarat with 6.03 lakhs and 5.4 lakhs respectively. Presently, EESL is retrofitting 15,000 conventional lights with LED street lights every day.

Project is near completion in the states of Himachal Pradesh, Tripura and Gujarat. EESL is also implementing a special heritage lighting project in Kashi region of Uttar Pradesh where 4,000 lights are being installed. The programme has also recently commenced in the cities of Chandigarh and Port Blair, Andaman and Nicobar Islands.

Further, the procurement price of the LED Street Lights has been reduced from Rs. 135/watt to Rs. 80/watt due to mass procurement of the lights. EESL makes the entire upfront investment in installation of the street lights and no additional budget allocation from the municipalities is required. Municipalities pay EESL from the savings in energy and maintenance cost over a 7-year period, making the LED lights affordable and accessible. EESL also undertakes social audits in ULBs where the project is under implementation and post the completion of the project. Few of the social audit results give a clear indication that the overall satisfaction level and the perception of safety among the citizens is extremely high from the newly installed LED street lights.

EESL procurements conform to BIS specification and carry a 7-year warranty against technical defects. EESL conducts appropriate quality checks right from the bidding stage to the field level. This has resulted in the LEDs’ overall technical fault being less than 2 percent in the 30 lakh lights installed by EESL in the country. EESL has maintained an up-time of 97 percent for all street lights across the country.

By EB Bureau