Author: cprindia

Part 3 of a blog series by the Centre for Policy Research (CPR) and Prayas (Energy Group)
The series is titled ‘Plugging in: Electricity consumption in Indian Homes’.

Lighting is the most basic use of electricity in a home. Lighting’s share in the total residential electricity consumption is estimated to be in the range of 18% to 27%. In 2013, about a billion and a half lighting devices were sold in India; half of them being incandescent bulbs followed by CFLs (31%), tube-lights (16%) and a negligible share of LED bulbs. In 2014, the government launched a programme to promote LED bulbs in Indian households and later named it UJALA (Unnat Jyoti by Affordable LEDs for All).

This is because LED bulbs consume less electricity, last longer, and does not contain mercury. The programme, arguably the world’s largest, has sold more than 27 crore LED bulbs with no subsidy from the government. How did the programme change India’s lighting industry and consumer behaviour? What part of programme design worked and what can be improved? Answers to these questions can improve future programmes designed to improve energy efficiency in India. In this post, we discuss some key findings of our recent report where we surveyed manufacturers, retailers, households, and various stakeholders to understand the impacts of UJALA.

Innovative programme

Energy Efficiency Services Ltd. (EESL), a public sector company, is responsible for implementing the UJALA programme. The company bought LED bulbs in bulk from manufacturers through multiple rounds of competitive bidding. The large volumes and assured sales incentivised the manufacturers to drop the bid price from Rs. 310 per LED bulb in the first round to as low as Rs. 38 in later rounds. EESL sold these bulbs to consumers through contract vendors in co-ordination with the local electricity distribution companies (discoms), bypassing the retail supply chain and further bringing down the final distribution price. As a result, the current price of LED bulbs under UJALA is Rs. 70, about half of the price of the LED bulbs available in the shops. Yet, there is no subsidy from the government or the discoms. EESL also conducted innovative marketing campaigns to create public awareness.

LED bulb sales are up and prices down

The UJALA programme transformed the LED lighting industry in India. Demand for LED bulbs has gone up 50 times in the three years since 2014, while the retail market price (for bulbs sold beyond UJALA) has dropped to a third. The fall in prices can be attributed to the economies of scale achieved due to substantial demand creation by the UJALA programme, in tandem with the global trend of reduction in prices of the LED chips. India’s LED bulb manufacturing capacity has also grown substantially, with about 176 registered manufacturing units in India.

Figure 1: Sales trends of lighting devices in India
Source: ELCOMA
Our surveys show that LED bulbs are now a major source of lighting for the households that participated in the UJALA programme (Figure 2). Most of the households also said that they would buy a new LED bulb from the market when the installed LED bulb reached the end of its useful life.

ncandescent bulbs are still around

The increased demand for LED bulbs seems to replace the demand for CFLs instead of incandescent bulbs. About 810 million incandescent bulbs were sold in 2016, a 5% drop over previous year’s sale whereas the sales of CFLs have dropped by a third since their peak in 2013 (Figure 1). Our surveys corroborate this trend as we find that a considerably large proportion of the UJALA LED bulbs were used to replace CFLs, followed by incandescent bulbs and tube lights (Figure 3).

Figure 3: Lighting options replaced by LED bulbs bought under UJALA for surveyed households
Source: Prayas Consumer survey (January – March 2017)
The more that people replace CFLs with LEDs, the lesser the saving that are actually realized. Our sample of households in Pune was distributed across different income classes. A typical LED bulb saved 2.5 times more in a low income household compared to a high income household. This makes a case for programme to focus more on low income households.

LED bulb quality and warranty is important

Our surveys found that 2% of LED bulbs failed in Pune after a year of launch of the programme, while 14% of the LED bulbs failed in Puducherry three years after the launch. The bulbs sold in Pune carried a warranty of 3 years while the bulbs sold in Puducherry carried a warranty of 8 years. However, very few households got their faulty bulbs replaced. Lower expectations from a government programme and higher tolerance levels for faults in low cost LED bulbs, ignorance about warranty, and hassles in the process were cited as reasons for not replacing the faulty bulbs under warranty.

To conclude, UJALA has created a large and sustainable market for LED bulbs in India using the no-subsidy, bulk procurement model. Demand for LED bulbs has increased manifold and the retail market price (for the LED bulbs sold beyond UJALA) has dropped by a third. It has also created a significant awareness about LED bulbs, further contributing to increasing demand. Going ahead, EESL can ensure stricter monitoring and evaluation of the programme. It can also focus on low income households and small commercial establishments who are still buying incandescent bulbs. We focus on this aspect of LED use in low income households in the next post.

This piece is authored by Aditya Chunekar and Sanjana Mulay from Prayas (Energy Group).

This blog series is also available on the Prayas website here.

This article was republished in Eklavya Magazine in Hindi under ‘स्रोत विज्ञान एवं टेक्नॉलॉजी फीचर्स’, and can be accessed here.

To subscribe to email updates on the series, click here.

Other posts in this series:

• Electricity Consumption in Indian Homes
• Trends in India’s Residential Electricity Consumption
• Illuminating Affordable Homes
• The Efficiency of Appliances
• Appliances used in Affordable Housing
• Electrifying the National Capital Region
• Exploring the different uses of household appliances
• Role of human behaviour in driving electricity use

FULL AUDIO OF TALK
URBAN SERVICES

Listen to the full audio of the talk (above) by Kabir Sheikh where he speaks about India’s governance of its human resources for health.

In this talk, Sheikh outlines the inadequacies of prevailing, largely instrumental, approaches to governance of human resources for health, such as retention, substitution and assimilation. He illustrates how deeper socio-political phenomena such as professional dominance, pluralism, parallel systems and regulatory capture have shaped the character and dynamics of the health workforce, rendering it resistant to common policy solutions.

NEW JOURNAL ARTICLE CO-AUTHORED BY NAVROZ K DUBASH, RADHIKA KHOSLA, ANKIT BHARDWAJ, AND NARASIMHA D RAO
CLIMATE RESEARCH ENERGY RESEARCH

Over the last few years, India has variously been presented in the global climate debate as an energy-hungry climate deal-breaker, and a forerunner of a low carbon future. Developing clarity on India’s energy and emissions future, however, is challenged by the uncertainties of India’s development transitions. Based on an interpretive analysis of 7 leading studies on CO2 emissions from energy, this paper concludes that given current policies, a doubling of India’s emissions from 2012 levels is a likely upper bound for emissions in 2030, and that this level is consistent with India’s Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC), as the graphic below suggests.

ACCESS THE FULL JOURNAL ARTICLE
CLIMATE RESEARCH ENERGY RESEARCH

How can India undertake its large projected growth in buildings while simultaneously meeting its development, energy and climate objectives? The Building and Research Information special issue sets out to help answer this question by developing and extending the growing body of research on the topic, with the aim to help define the built environment in India as an emerging and important field of socio-technical enquiry. The special issue’s framing of the problem departs from the often used techno-economic view and instead suggests that both technical infrastructures, such as the built environment, and social infrastructures, such as policies, professions, habits and norms, shape behaviour, and as a consequence offer significant potential for reducing overall energy demand and GHG emissions. This editorial, which contextualizes the special issue, sets a three-pronged multidisciplinary framework for current and future research on India’s building stock, and associates the papers in the special issue with this agenda. It also points to the importance of international research collaborations in seeking solutions to India’s energy and climate change challenges.

CPR FACULTY ANALYSE
POLITICS SOUTH ASIA INTERNATIONAL POLITICS

As India made a bid for NSG membership at Seoul in June, 2016, and was opposed by China, CPR faculty analyse it from different aspects:

In The Hindu, Shyam Saran analyses China’s public stand against India’s membership in the NSG, contextualising it historically, and suggests that India should carefully assess the ongoing geopolitical changes, and ‘fashion an appropriate response strategy’.
In The Great Delusion, Pratap Bhanu Mehta analyses the reasons for India’s failed NSG bid from different angles.
In another interview to Firstpost, Saran writes that despite the failed bid, India ‘should engage in quiet but active diplomacy, to mobilise greater support within the NSG, including winning over China,’ since China was unlikely to risk a setback to India-China relations in the long run.
In a two part interview with The Wire (Part 1, Part 2), Shyam Saran again analyses the reasons behind China’s stance at Seoul, and says that India must not make NSG membership an elemental issue, as well as deal with China taking into account its very complex relationship with the country, which is both adversarial and collaborative in nature.

LISTEN TO THE INDIA AND THE PANDEMIC PODCAST SERIES
PODCAST HEALTH

The second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic saw rural parts of India get affected as well, unlike the previous year during the first wave. In this episode of India Speak, Yamini Aiyar (President and Chief Executive, CPR) speaks to Anurag Behar (Chief Executive Officer, Azim Premji Foundation) to discuss the impact of COVID-19 in the hinterlands. How are people in those areas responding to the pandemic? What are the economic consequences beyond just the health consequences they face?

Behar walks us through his experiences over the last few months visiting different parts of the country that were ravaged by the virus. He sheds light on the stigma associated with COVID, the challenges of documenting death, and the state of India’s health infrastructure. He further discusses the levels of economic deprivation, condition of hunger, the potential for schools reopening and more. Finally, Behar share’s his perspective on what we need to do now, in advance of a potential third wave.

About the Series

The second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic poses serious challenges that need immediate attention. The collapse of an already strained health system, vaccine supply shortage, an unprecedented economic crisis and sharpening inequality, are factors that raise crucial concerns. How must India confront this crisis? The Centre for Policy Research (CPR) brings leading experts to discuss what the country’s response should look like in a new podcast series, India and the Pandemic.

Listen to other episodes in this series:

• Impact of the Second Wave on the Economy featuring Pranjul Bhandari
• Impact of the Second Wave on Unemployment and Labour Force Participation featuring Mahesh Vyas
• Impact on Jobs, Incomes, Inequality and Poverty featuring Amit Basole
• Responding to the Spread of COVID-19 in Rural India featuring Abhijit Chowdhury

LISTEN TO THE INDIA AND THE PANDEMIC PODCAST SERIES
PODCAST ECONOMY HEALTH

Unlike last year during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, the second wave witnessed the virus making inroads into rural areas of India as well. To discuss this and more, Yamini Aiyar (President and Chief Executive, CPR) speaks to Abhijit Chowdhury (Chief Advisor, Liver Foundation, West Bengal) in this episode of India Speak.

Chowdhury discusses what the on-ground realities look like in rural India. He sheds light on how the health system in these areas can be prepared to respond to this unfolding crisis. Finally, he discusses what it will take to achieve universal vaccination for all adults in these areas, advocating for a community-based approach to both treatment and vaccination.

About the Series

The second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic poses serious challenges that need immediate attention. The collapse of an already strained health system, vaccine supply shortage, an unprecedented economic crisis and sharpening inequality, are factors that raise crucial concerns. How must India confront this crisis? The Centre for Policy Research (CPR) brings leading experts to discuss what the country’s response should look like in a new podcast series, India and the Pandemic.

Listen to other episodes in this series:

• Impact of the Second Wave on the Economy featuring Pranjul Bhandari
• Impact of the Second Wave on Unemployment and Labour Force Participation featuring Mahesh Vyas
• Impact on Jobs, Incomes, Inequality and Poverty featuring Amit Basole

LISTEN TO THE INDIA AND THE PANDEMIC PODCAST SERIES
PODCAST ECONOMY HEALTH

The State of Working India 2021 report by the Centre for Sustainable Employment (CSE) at the Azim Premji University finds that the pandemic has further increased informality and led to a severe decline in earnings for the majority of workers resulting in a sudden increase in poverty. In particular, the poor, women and younger workers have disproportionately borne the brunt of the pandemic.

To discuss key findings of the report and more, Yamini Aiyar (President and Chief Executive, CPR) speaks to Amit Basole (Associate Professor of Economics and Head, CSE, Azim Premji University) in this episode of India Speak. Basole sheds light on the trends in employment patterns and the dynamics of informality in India’s labour market prior to the pandemic, to make sense of the slow structural transformation in the economy. He discusses the implications of the differentiated gender dynamics, the move to informality and the loss of income for India’s economy. He further highlights what the policy response should be to the immediate crisis and the lessons that can be learned from it.

About the Series

The second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic poses serious challenges that need immediate attention. The collapse of an already strained health system, vaccine supply shortage, an unprecedented economic crisis and sharpening inequality, are factors that raise crucial concerns. How must India confront this crisis? The Centre for Policy Research (CPR) brings leading experts to discuss what the country’s response should look like in a new podcast series, India and the Pandemic.

Listen to other episodes in this series:

• Impact of the Second Wave on the Economy featuring Pranjul Bhandari
• Impact of the Second Wave on Unemployment and Labour Force Participation featuring Mahesh Vyas

LISTEN TO THE INDIA AND THE PANDEMIC PODCAST SERIES
PODCAST ECONOMY HEALTH

The second wave of the pandemic saw localised lockdowns across India that brought economic activities to a halt. What has been the impact of this on unemployment and labour force participation? In this episode of India Speak, Yamini Aiyar (President and Chief Executive, CPR) speaks to Mahesh Vyas [Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer, Centre for Monitoring the Indian Economy (CMIE)]. Through its surveys, CMIE has been closely tracking the health of the Indian economy, particularly the labour market, consumer sentiment and investment patterns.

Vyas sheds light on the trends in unemployment and labour participation rates during the peak of the national lockdown, the phase of economic recovery and the second wave. He discusses the impact of increased informality and decreased female labour force participation and the lessons learned from the first wave of COVID-19. Further, he underscores the impact of the second wave on consumer sentiment and what the government must do to revive the economy. Finally, he discusses the need to monitor the economy regularly and ways to strengthen India’s statistical systems.

About the Series

The second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic poses serious challenges that need immediate attention. The collapse of an already strained health system, vaccine supply shortage, an unprecedented economic crisis and sharpening inequality, are factors that raise crucial concerns. How must India confront this crisis? The Centre for Policy Research (CPR) brings leading experts to discuss what the country’s response should look like in a new podcast series, India and the Pandemic.

Listen to other episodes in this series:

• Impact of the Second Wave on the Economy featuring Pranjul Bhandari

LISTEN TO THE INDIA AND THE PANDEMIC PODCAST SERIES
PODCAST ECONOMY HEALTH

The Indian economy was going through an unprecedented slowdown that was exacerbated by the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic and resultant national lockdown. Just as the economy was showing signs of recovery, the country has been hit by the virulent second wave. With multiple localised lockdowns, a halt on mobility and economic activity and an unprecedented health crisis, this time, the ravages of the pandemic are being felt across the nation, even rural areas.

What has been the impact of the second wave on India’s economy and how does it differ from the first wave? In this episode of India Speak, Yamini Aiyar (President and Chief Executive, CPR) speaks to Pranjul Bhandari (Managing Director and Chief India Economist, HSBC). Bhandari sheds light on the state of India’s economy before the second wave hit, the implications of the second wave particularly for the informal sector and why it needs a special focus and what a policy response to the economic crisis from the Centre and states should look like.

About the Series

The second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic poses serious challenges that need immediate attention. The collapse of an already strained health system, vaccine supply shortage, an unprecedented economic crisis and sharpening inequality, are factors that raise crucial concerns. How must India confront this crisis? The Centre for Policy Research (CPR) brings leading experts to discuss what the country’s response should look like in a new podcast series, India and the Pandemic.