India’s ‘Ujala’ to light up homes in United Kingdom

LONDON: Nearly a century after importing equipment from Britain for setting up its first thermal power station at Husain Sagar in Andhra Pradesh, India on Saturday launched the process to export ‘Ujala’ -- Hindi for light -- to the United Kingdom with affordable ‘Made in India’ LED bulbs.

“PM Narendra Modi's idea that India need not follow the world and must take the leadership in reducing global carbon intensity through efficient and sustainable energy use has brought us here,” power, coal, renewable energy and mines minister Piyush Goyal told TOI at the launch.

Ujala is globally one of the largest efficiency programmes and being run by Energy Efficiency Services Ltd, an energy services company promoted by Indian state-run power majors.


Through this initiative, the government plans to replace all 770 million inefficient incandescent and CFL (compact fluorescent lamps in the country with LED (light emitting diode) bulbs.

The programme has already turned India into the world's LED capital, accounting for 10-12% of the global market 4 billion bulbs.

The Ujala scheme uses economy of scale and a sustainable market mechanism.