Cities get street smart as government's LED scheme catches on

New Delhi: The government's ambitious plan to replace conventional street lights with energy-efficient LED lamps in cities is gathering momentum as six urban local bodies (ULBs), including Agartala and Vizag, have already completed the job. Besides, as many as 90 municipalities have finalised agreements under the Street Light National Programme for the replacement.

"The installation of LED bulbs is completed in 6 ULBs, namely Vizag, Jhalawar, Mount Abu, Pushkar, Neelimarna and Agartala. Some 2,07,000 street lights have been replaced in these places," a senior official said. The official further said the installation is in progress in 88 ULBs in Delhi, Rajasthan and Andhra Pradesh to replace 9.3 lakh lights.

As many as 302 ULBs have enrolled in the Street Light National Programme (SLNP) till September 7, 2015 and the target is to install 15 lakh LEDs by March 2016. SLNP has finalised agreements with 90 municipalities for the purpose, he added. Prime Minister Narendra Modi had launched the national programme for 100 cities on January 5 to press ahead with the conversion of lights.

Under SLNP, replacement of 3.5 crore conventional street lights will lead to savings of 9,000 million units annually. The total cost savings of municipalities every year will work out to Rs 5,500 crore. The Energy Efficiency Services (EESL) has been designated as the implementing agency, which replaces conventional street lights with LEDs at its own cost. The consequent reduction in energy and maintenance cost of the municipality is used to repay EESL over a period of time.

EESL's contracts with municipalities are typically of 7-year duration where it not only guarantees a minimum energy saving, but also provides free replacements and maintenance of lights at no additional costs to the municipalities. The service model enables the municipalities to go in for state-of-the-art street lights with no upfront capital cost and repayments to EESL. Thus, there is no additional revenue expenditure required to be incurred by a municipality for switchover to smarter LED street lights.