Impact of India’s large-scale LED bulb
program
Aditya Chunekar
Fellow
Prayas (Energy Group)
Unit IIIA, Devgiri, Joshi Railway Museum Lane
Kothrud Industrial Area
Kothrud, Pune – 411038
India
Sanjana Mulay
Research Associate
Prayas (Energy Group)
Unit IIIA, Devgiri, Joshi Railway Museum Lane
Kothrud Industrial Area
Kothrud, Pune – 411038
India
Keywords
evaluation, LED, incandescent light bulbs, market transforma-
tion
Abstract
India’s Unnat Jyoti by Affordable LEDs for All (UJALA) is ar-
guably the world’s largest zero-subsidy LED bulb program for
households. About 318 million LED bulbs have been sold un-
der the program since its launch in 2014. Production of LED
lighting in India has gone up 50 times since 2014 and retail
price of an LED bulb has dropped to a third of the value in
2014. Energy Efficiency Services Ltd. (EESL), its public sector
implementing agency, is now using the program model to sell
energy efficient ceiling fans, air-conditioners, agricultural water
pumps, and other equipment in India as well as other countries.
In this paper, we study the impacts of the UJALA program. The
primary objective of this paper is to draw lessons to increase
the effectiveness of the existing UJALA program, and to aid the
design of similar future programs in India and abroad.
We consider three key questions. First, how did the program
impact India’s lighting market and what was the response of
the manufacturers and other stakeholders? Second, how did
the program change consumer behaviour related to lighting
in India? Third, how effective were the different processes of
the program in achieving the stated objective? We employ a
combination of desk and field research to evaluate the impacts.
The desk research includes market research reports, technology
reports, tender documents, and policy/regulatory submissions.
The field research includes surveys and in-depth interviews.
We conducted surveys of 1,029 households in three cities and
445 rural households in one district in India. We also conduct-
Mrudula Kelkar
Research Associate
Prayas (Energy Group)
Unit IIIA, Devgiri, Joshi Railway Museum Lane
Kothrud Industrial Area
Kothrud, Pune – 411038
India
ed survey of 150 retailers in two cities to understand the impact
of the program on their sales. Our in-depth interviews covered
manufacturers, independent technical experts, electricity dis-
tribution utilities, and public sector agencies.
Introduction
India’s Unnat Jyoti by Affordable LEDs for All (UJALA) is ar-
guably the world’s largest zero-subsidy LED bulb program for
households (IEA 2017). It was launched in 2014 with a tar-
get to replace 758  million  incandescent bulbs sold annually
in 2012 with energy efficient LED bulbs (EESL 2014). It was
estimated to save about 50 terawatt hours (TWh) of electricity
consumption annually, resulting in about 19 gigawatt (GW) of
avoided generation capacity (ibid). Lighting has always been
one of the major end-uses of electricity in Indian homes. In
2012, the ownership of high electricity consumption appli-
ances such as refrigerators and air-conditioners was low, at
23 % and 2 % respectively (Desai and Vanneman 2017). About
80  % of households consumed less than 100  kilowatt hours
(kWh) of electricity every month, suggesting a higher share
of basic appliances such as lighting, television and fans (NSSO
2014). Before the UJALA program, various estimates put the
contribution of lighting to India’s total residential electricity
consumption anywhere between 18  % to 27  % (PEG 2016).
Hence, UJALA presented a significant opportunity to reduce
electricity consumption and, in turn, electricity bills. Although
not explicitly mentioned, UJALA also presented the opportu-
nity to increase the reliability of power supply, particularly in
rural areas. Lighting is a significant contributor to the evening
peak load. Reduction in the peak demand can reduce the load
ECEEE SUMMER STUDY PROCEEDINGS  735
4-257-19 CHUNEKAR ET AL
on the distribution transformers, particularly in rural areas.
This can address the issue of over-loading of the transform-
ers leading to their tripping, one of the frequent reasons for
power cuts. A number of studies have proven the link between
increase in power supply reliability and increased welfare (for
e.g. Rao 2013).
Given the benefits of efficient lighting, India has had a num-
ber of small scale utility level programs to promote Compact
Fluorescent Lamps (CFL) (PEG 2014). Most of the programs
focused on reducing the price of CFLs, which was about 10–
15 times that of incandescent bulbs. In 2009, the Indian govern-
ment launched a national level program called Bachat Lamp
Yojana (BLY) with the aim of replacing 400 million incandes-
cent bulbs. Under this program, the CFL was available at the
price of an incandescent bulb and the balance amount of the
CFL’s actual price was recovered through the Clean Develop-
ment Mechanism (CDM), a carbon trading scheme established
under the Kyoto Protocol. About 29 million CFLs were sold
under the scheme before it stalled, primarily due to the crash
in carbon prices under the CDM. The stalling of BLY prompted
Energy Efficiency Services Ltd. (EESL), a public sector com-
pany, to develop and implement UJALA. UJALA’s objective was
to bring down the price of LED bulbs using the architecture
and best practices of the BLY scheme while avoiding the pitfalls
of linking the model to the volatile international carbon mar-
ket. Since its launch, about 318 million LED bulbs have been
sold under the program (EESL 2019). The program claims to
be saving about 41 TWh of electricity annually, which is about
16 % of the total residential electricity consumption in India in
2016–2017 (MOSPI 2018). The peak load reduction is claimed
to be about 8 GW, which is about 2 % of India’s total installed
capacity. The price of LED bulbs sold under the program has
fallen to a fifth of third value in 2014. Production of LED light-
ing in India in 2017 was 80 times that of 2014 (ELCOMA 2017)
and the retail price of an LED bulb available outside the pro-
gram has dropped to a third of the value in 2014. EESL is now
using the program model to sell energy efficient ceiling fans,
air-conditioners, agricultural water pumps, and other equip-
ment in India, as well as in other countries. UJALA’s success
as a large-scale energy efficiency program needs to be studied
systematically to increase the effectiveness of the existing pro-
gram, and to aid the design of similar future programs in India
and abroad. This is the motivation for our work and we report
our findings in this paper.
In the next section, we briefly discuss the features of the
UJALA program. We then describe the methodology used for
studying the impacts of the program. We subsequently discuss
key observations based on our analysis, before concluding in
the last section.
UJALA program
Energy Efficiency Services Ltd. (EESL), a public sector com-
pany, designed and implemented the UJALA program in India.
EESL was incorporated in 2009 by the Ministry of Power to
assist central and state governments in implementing various
energy efficiency and energy conservation programs of the Bu-
reau of Energy Efficiency (BEE). BEE is India’s statutory nodal
agency for developing energy efficiency policies, programs, and
regulations. EESL has been instrumental in a significant scale-
736  ECEEE 2019 SUMMER STUDY
4. MONITORING AND EVALUATION FOR GREATER IMPACT
up of energy efficiency programs in India. UJALA was EESL’s
first national level program. Buoyed by its success, it has now
ventured into implementing programs for smart meters, elec-
tric vehicles, and energy efficient agricultural pumps, among
others. Its revenues have increased from a meagre 2 million Eu-
ros in 2014 to about 163 million Euros in 2018. It has about
1,200 employees over 35 locations across India. It has secured
long-term loans from institutions like Germany’s kfW Devel-
opment Bank, the Asian Development Bank, and the World
Bank.
UJALA is a bulk procurement program designed to reduce
the price of LED bulbs without direct subsidy and transform
India’s lighting market. It was launched by India’s prime-min-
ister at the national level in 2015 following a series of utility
level pilots. Under the program, EESL aggregated the demand
for LED bulbs at the national level and procured them through
competitive bidding. EESL procured about 230 million LED
bulbs from multiple manufactures through 10 different rounds
of bidding from January 2014 to September 2016. The bidding
price per LED bulb came down from Rs. 310 (3.82 Euro) in
January 2014 to Rs.  38 (0.47  Euro) in September 2016. The
technical specifications for the LED bulb were based on those
specified by the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) and were up-
graded with each bidding round based on developments in the
market and technology (EESL 2016). The warranty offered by
the manufacturers however, came down from 8 years in ear-
lier bids to 3 years in later bids. Later bidding specifications
required the manufacturers to produce the entire quantity of
LED bulbs required by the tender, in India. There were also a
relaxed set of criteria for small scale manufacturers, to promote
their participation.
Following the bulk procurement of LED bulbs at the national
level, EESL sold them at the local level in each electricity dis-
tribution utility territory by signing agreements with the re-
spective utility. EESL contracted local vendors for marketing
and sale of LED bulbs (EESL 2015b). The bulbs were sold at a
price which covered for the procurement price, EESL’s profits,
vendor costs, and taxes. EESL kept the retail supply chain ac-
tors, used by the lighting companies to sell their products, out
of the program. The combination of low procurement price and
avoided mark-ups of the retail chain allowed EESL to sell LED
bulbs at a steep discount. In 2016, the price of an LED bulb
sold under the program was Rs. 65 (0.80 Euro) as compared to
about Rs. 150 (1.85 Euro) for an LED bulb sold in a retail shop.
Buyers had an option to buy the LED bulbs either by paying
the entire amount upfront or by paying it in instalments each
month through their electricity bills. Buyers had to provide
their electricity bill and a document as an identity proof before
buying the bulbs. This was to ensure that only households buy
these LED bulbs and not small commercial owners. Buyers opt-
ing for the on-bill financing mechanism were required to clear
all their arrears to be eligible for the scheme. The program was
not an exchange program and hence old bulbs were not col-
lected. The bulbs were available either at the local electricity
distribution utility office or at the temporary distribution ki-
osks set up by vendors in various localities across the cities and
towns. The program is still running in some states of India but
there has been no recent procurement of LED bulbs. EESL has
now increased the reach of its distribution channels. The LED
bulbs under the program are now available at post-offices and
4. MONITORING AND EVALUATION FOR GREATER IMPACT
petrol pumps in few states. EESL also hired mobile vans which
can move from village to village, selling LED bulbs at a further
discounted price.
Methodology
We consider three key questions to understand the impact of
UJALA based on the best practices adopted for comprehensive
evaluation of energy efficiency programs (NAPEE 2007). First,
how did the program impact India’s lighting market and what
was the response of the manufacturers and other stakeholders?
Second, how did the program change consumer behaviour re-
lated to lighting in India? Third, how effective were the differ-
ent processes of the program in achieving its stated objective?
Ideally, in order to comprehensively understand all the impacts,
an evaluation plan should be a part of the program design and
periodic data on pre-determined parameters should be col-
lected over the course of the program. However, this was not
the case for UJALA. Additionally, macro data such as state level
distribution of sales of various lighting products, periodic es-
timates of end-use distribution of residential electricity usage,
and the weighted efficiency of the stock of lighting products can
be used to assess the macro impact of a national level program
like UJALA. However, no such data exists in India. Hence, our
approach involved an indicative assessment of the program
based on a combination of desk research and field research. The
desk research included review and analysis of market research
reports, technology reports, tender documents, and policy/
regulatory submissions. The field research included the follow-
ing surveys and in-depth interviews:
• Survey of 1,029 households who bought LED bulbs under
UJALA in the cities of Pune, Lucknow, and Puducherry
• Survey of 445 households in rural areas of Pune district
• Survey of 150 retailers selling LED bulbs in Lucknow and
Puducherry
• Survey of seven distribution kiosks in Pune selling LED
bulbs under the program
• Interviews with manufacturers, representatives from ELCO-
MA (Electric Lamp and Component Manufacturers’ Asso-
ciation of India) and with independent market and technical
consultants from the lighting industry
• Interviews with representatives from EESL and the Bureau
of Energy Efficiency (BEE), the statutory nodal agency for
energy efficiency programs in India
• Interviews with the representatives of nine electricity dis-
tribution utilities
The locations for our household surveys were chosen to meet
certain criteria. Lucknow is a city in the northern state of Uttar
Pradesh which is one of the poorest states of India and also had
lower rates of household electrification in 2014. Pune is a city
in the western state of Maharashtra, which is one of the richest
and largest states in India. Pune is also the city with the maxi-
mum sales of LED bulbs under the program in Maharashtra,
which in turn is among the states with the highest sales of LED
bulbs under the program. Puducherry is a union territory (a
region governed directly by the federal government) in India’s
4-257-19 CHUNEKAR ET AL
south where the pilot for the UJALA was conducted. The pilot
in Puducherry was different from UJALA in several ways. Two
key differences from the consumer point of view were: (a) LED
bulbs were made available for Rs. 10 (the price of an incandes-
cent bulb) with the rest of the amount being subsidized by the
utility, and (b) consumers were required to submit old incan-
descent bulbs. All the surveys were conducted in February–
March 2017. Cities were chosen since UJALA was predomi-
nantly urban focused in its earlier stages. A second survey was
conducted in the rural areas of Pune district in order to identify
the reasons for the continued use of incandescent bulbs. Details
of the survey and questionnaire can be found in (PEG 2017)
and (PEG 2018).
Observations
In this section, we discuss our observations on three aspects of
the impact of the program: market impact, consumer behav-
iour, and process effectiveness.
MARKET IMPACT
India’s lighting market
India’s lighting market was valued at about Rs.  210  billion
(2.5  billion  Euros) in 2017 with LED lighting’s share being
68 %, up from 20 % in 2014 (ELCOMA 2017). Production of
LED lighting products was about 425 million pieces annually
in 2017, up from about 5 million in 2014 (see Figure 1). The
retail price of an LED bulb (sold outside the UJALA program)
in 2017 was about third of its value in 2014. About 350 com-
panies are selling LED bulbs in India and are registered under
the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS)’s Compulsory Registra-
tion Scheme (CRS) (DeitY 2014). Of these, 36 companies are
large companies with established brands and form a part of
India’s lighting manufacturer’s association. A major share of the
rest of the companies comes from the small scale unorganized
market and they mostly sell manually assembled, cheap, low
quality LED bulbs. LED bulbs sold in India are sourced from
about 250 registered manufacturing units in India and 86 units
in China (ibid). Most of the Indian manufacturers import the
main components of LED bulbs, LED chips and drivers, from
China and assemble them in India. There is a significant small
scale unorganized market.
Impact on price of LED bulbs
Price reduction of LED bulbs is one of the key achievements
attributed to UJALA. The price of LED bulbs under the UJALA
program fell by about 40 % on annual basis from 2014 to 2017
whereas the retail price of the LED bulb (sold outside the pro-
gram) fell by about 28 % annually in the same period. LED bulb
prices have seen a downward trend across the globe. One study
(Scholand 2016) found that between 2011 and 2015 prices of
LED bulbs reduced 32 % annually in France, 33 % in Italy, 32 %
in Spain, and 27 % in the UK. Another study (Gerke, Ngo, and
Fisseha 2015) found a 28 % annual decline in prices of LED
bulbs in the USA between 2011 and 2015.
This global reduction in prices can be attributed to a com-
bination of the characteristics of LED bulbs and economies of
scale. The price of a LED chip, an important component of an
LED bulb, has fallen by a factor of 10 every decade since 1960
ECEEE SUMMER STUDY PROCEEDINGS  737
4-257-19 CHUNEKAR ET AL
Figure 1. Annual production of different lighting products in India (Source: ELCOMA).
(Haitz and Tsao 2011). The LED chip along with the driver to
control current, form about 70 % of the total cost. The LED bulb
is a more recent application of LEDs and hence the economies
of scale have a higher potential for cost reduction. Gerke et al.
(Gerke, Ngo, and Fisseha 2015) compared the price decline in
the USA to the Indian LED bulb production and estimated that
LED bulb prices have fallen by 18 % for each doubling in cu-
mulative production.
Although the price reduction of LED bulbs in India is compa-
rable to other countries, it would not have been possible without
the UJALA program, as there was no demand for LED lighting
products. UJALA provided several direct and indirect incentives
to manufacturers to increase the production capacity of LED
bulbs in India. The first and foremost was the significant bulk
demand for LED bulbs. A study in 2011 (PwC 2011) estimated a
cost reduction of 30 % on the order of 5 million or more pieces
in India. As the demand for LED bulbs increased, manufacturers
found it economical to invest more in local assembly lines rather
than import the bulbs. The manufactures also preferred dealing
with one consumer, EESL, rather than dealing with thousands of
distributors and retailers across the country. This also brought
down their transportation costs, as they could pack a larger
quantity of bulbs in a single shipment to the EESL warehouses.
EESL also paid upfront and fast, unlike retailers and dealers who
preferred credit lines that resulted in recovery issues in some
cases. EESL also took responsibility for the nation-wide adver-
tising of LED bulbs. Although EESL did not advertise specific
brands, the box of the LED bulb carried the brand name, giving
the manufacturers much valued brand-recognition. Addition-
ally, the elimination of dealer and retail mark-ups reduced the
price of LED bulbs sold under the program. The low price of LED
bulbs sold under UJALA also acted as an external pressure for
the price of LED bulbs sold in retail market outside the program.
Impact on quality of LED bulbs
This focus on price reduction, however, may have affected the
quality of LED bulbs available in India. In a bid to reduce price,
manufacturers may have compromised on the quality of some
components that do not affect lumen output but may affect
safety or the product life. For instance, an LED bulb with an
738  ECEEE 2019 SUMMER STUDY
4. MONITORING AND EVALUATION FOR GREATER IMPACT
inferior quality heat sink can provide the same lumen output
as a good quality LED bulb, but will not last as long. LED bulbs
sold in India are required to meet safety and performance stand-
ards set by the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS), which in turn
are based on international standards. However, compliance
with these standards may be weak. A recent survey reported
that 76 % of surveyed LED bulb brands did not meet the stand-
ards set by BIS (TOI 2017). For bulbs procured under UJALA,
EESL required the manufacturers to self-certify their products
by submitting test reports from accredited laboratories (EESL
2016). However, there is no publicly available data to confirm
whether any compliance check on a random sample of LED
bulbs was done by EESL. EESL reported a failure rate of less than
0.1 % of the total bulbs sold based on the requests for warranty
(PwC 2015). However, as we discuss in the next section, war-
ranty requests may not be a good indicator of the actual failure
rate of LED bulbs. Good quality LED bulbs are crucial for their
sustained adoption. Hence it is important to build confidence
among people about the quality of LED bulbs. Periodic compli-
ance testing and publishing of results can act as a strong deter-
rent to companies selling inferior quality LED bulbs.
Impact on sales of CFLs and incandescent bulbs
UJALA’s impact in lighting market on the sales of CFLs and
incandescent bulbs can be seen in Figure 1. CFL sales peaked at
about 450 million pieces in 2013, buoyed by the government’s
previous program to promote CFLs. Manufacturers were confi-
dent about their future and invested significantly in adding CFL
production capacity. According to one estimate, the production
capacity of CFLs was almost double the actual sales of CFLs in
the country (ELCOMA 2013). However, as LED bulb demand
soared due to UJALA, the sales of CFLs plummeted. In 2017,
only 184 million CFLs were sold, about 40 % of their peak in
2013. Meanwhile, the sales of incandescent bulbs (ICBs) have
seen a less noticeable decline. Following an unexplained spike
in 2014, the sales of ICBs have declined at an annual rate of 5 %
till 2017. This indicates that the buyers have used LED bulbs
to replace more CFLs than ICBs. This is also evident from our
consumer surveys. Another possible reason for a slower decline
of ICBs may be the addition of sales due to increased house-
4. MONITORING AND EVALUATION FOR GREATER IMPACT
hold electrification in India. About 67 million households were
electrified between 2011 and 2018 (Census 2011; MoP 2018).
As most of these households were low income households pre-
ferring ICBs, they probably added to the sales of ICBs even as
some of the households already using ICBs shifted to CFLs or
LED bulbs. This can explain the declining but still popular sta-
tus of ICBs. In any case, this indicates that the UJALA program
needs to focus more on households still buying ICBs to shift
them to LED bulbs.
CONSUMER BEHAVIOUR
Household surveys were conducted in three cities of Pune,
Lucknow, and Puducherry and rural areas in Pune district
to understand consumers’ response to the program and their
usage behaviour related to lighting.
Awareness and purchase behaviour
UJALA played a major role in increasing awareness about LED
bulbs. About 47 % of households in Lucknow, 60 % in Pune, and
73 % in Puducherry reported that they would not have bought
LED bulbs if not for the UJALA program. The majority of the
households bought LED bulbs because they reduced electricity
bills. The second reason reported was the cheaper price of the
LED bulbs under the program. Very few households reported
buying LED bulbs because they were good for the environment.
Most of the bulbs purchased were in use (70–81 %) whereas
the rest were stored for future use. A look at the lighting stock
of the surveyed households in different cities shows that al-
though LED bulbs form a majority, they still have not replaced
all the lighting options in households (see Figure 2). People still
use CFLs and tube-lights along with LED bulbs as their source
of lighting. The ownership of incandescent bulbs, however, is
very low. This indicates that ownership of incandescent bulbs
is probably higher in rural areas and that is where most of the
bulbs are being sold. Most of the households in Pune (81 %)
and Lucknow (87 %) reported that they would buy a new LED
bulb from the market when the installed LED bulb reached the
end of its useful life. However, only 58 % of the respondents
in Puducherry were willing to buy a new LED bulb. This may
be related to the high failure rate of bulbs in Puducherry. We
discuss this more in the sub-section on monitoring and evalu-
ation under process effectiveness. It is also important to know
Figure 2. Lighting stock for surveyed households in March 2017.
4-257-19 CHUNEKAR ET AL
what consumers did with their old bulbs. About 48 % of the
households in Pune and 37 % in Lucknow discarded the old
bulbs as they were not required to exchange their old bulbs for
the UJALA LED bulbs. A considerable number of households
also stored the old bulbs for future use (about 37 % in Pune and
51 % in Lucknow). Thus, the older inefficient options present
a significant challenge for a program like UJALA. Consumers
may discard the older options in an environmentally harmful
manner or may pass them on to other users or use them again
till the end of their useful life, both equally undesirable options
from an energy consumption point of view.
LED bulb usage and savings
The actual usage of the LED bulbs and the lighting options
they replaced are useful data-points to estimate the savings in
electricity consumption realized. A substantial portion of the
LED bulbs were used to replace CFLs in all the three cities (see
Figure 3). This was followed by either tube-lights or incandes-
cent bulbs. In Puducherry, the share of replaced incandescent
bulbs was higher because consumers were asked to submit old
incandescent bulbs. Average usage hours for an LED bulb in
each city ranged from 4 to 6 hours a day. About 85 % of the
bulbs were used in the evening peak time. Average annual sav-
ings in electricity consumption per LED bulb was estimated
to be 31 kWh in Lucknow, 34 kWh in Pune, and 47 kWh in
Puducherry. The savings are higher in the case of Puducherry,
as more incandescent bulbs were replaced. Our sample in Pune
was distributed across three income classes. We found that a
typical LED bulb saved about 2.5 times more in a low income
household than a high income household. This is because of
two reasons. First, a typical lower income household has fewer
lighting points per household and hence higher usage hours
per lighting point compared to a high income household. Sec-
ond, a greater number of low income households used LED
bulbs to replace incandescent bulbs than high income house-
holds. This underscores the point of focusing the program on
lower income household for maximum savings and benefits.
Use of incandescent bulbs
We conducted a separate survey in the rural areas of Pune dis-
trict to understand the prevalence of use of incandescent bulbs
in 2018. Households were selected if they met one of the two
ECEEE SUMMER STUDY PROCEEDINGS  739
4-257-19 CHUNEKAR ET AL
Figure 3. Lighting options replaced by LED bulbs.
criteria: (i) there was at-least one ICB which was used for more
than two hours every day; (ii) more than half of the total lighting
points in the household had ICBs. This was to eliminate those
households which own incandescent bulbs but rarely use them.
About 57 % of the surveyed households did not know about
LED bulbs and their benefits. Only a fraction (5 %) of house-
holds knew about LED bulbs but did not buy one, suggesting
that a lack of awareness is an important barrier to owning LED
bulbs. About 38 % of the surveyed households owned at-least
one LED bulb. The average price of the LED bulb bought by
the households was Rs. 146; the median and mode was Rs. 150.
These bulbs were not bought under the UJALA program. This
suggests that a significant portion of households are ready to
buy LED bulbs even at the current market price if they are
confident about their benefits. However, about 84 % of the re-
spondents expressed their readiness to participate in the ‘on-bill’
financing mechanism. About 39 % of the households with LED
bulbs bought them from a shop in their own village, while 48 %
of the households bought them from shops at the nearest town
or district head-quarters. This suggests that LED bulbs are still
not available in all villages. Availability of bulbs in local shops
can make LED bulb purchase as well as replacement under war-
ranty easy, thereby increasing their uptake. About 28 % of the
households who bought LED bulbs were dissatisfied with their
performance. They did not want to change all the lighting points
in their homes to LED bulbs for this reason. About 51 % of the
households who were not satisfied with LED bulbs complained
about the light from the LED bulb being too bright, while 29 %
complained about light being too dim. This may either be be-
cause of the lack of awareness about choosing appropriate light-
ing for desired purposes or because of the poor quality of LED
bulbs. The reason could not be ascertained from the survey.
PROCESS EFFECTIVENESS
A number of innovative processes were developed and imple-
mented in the UJALA program. Understanding what worked
and what did not can provide valuable lessons for the future. A
comprehensive process evaluation looks at each and every pro-
cess and is conducted in co-ordination with the implementing
agency. However, we focused only on major processes. Our ob-
servations are based on surveys and interviews with consumers
and stakeholders, including EESL. Some key observations are
discussed below.
740  ECEEE 2019 SUMMER STUDY
4. MONITORING AND EVALUATION FOR GREATER IMPACT
Bulk procurement
Bulk procurement was the key feature of the UJALA program.
The procurement of LED bulbs was done over successive rounds
of competitive bidding. Manufacturers were required to submit
technical and price bids according to pre-specified criteria by
EESL (EESL 2016). Manufacturers whose technical bids met
the requirements set by EESL competed on price bids. In each
round, multiple bidders were selected and all of them were
asked to match the price of the lowest bidder. The volume of
the bid was then allocated to all the manufacturers who agreed
to match the lowest price in the bid. Over the course of the
program EESL evolved a set of qualifying criteria for the par-
ticipating manufacturers in order to ensure participation from
serious and capable contenders, as well as the simultaneous
promotion of domestic as well as small-scale manufacturers.
All the participating manufacturers commended EESL on the
speed and transparency of its bidding process. EESL could bar-
gain effectively as it could aggregate the demand on a national
scale. Every successive bid saw a higher number of bidders and
a reduced purchase price per LED bulb for EESL. However, the
manufacturers’ enthusiasm subsided towards the later bidding
rounds. The bidding price had reached a level where the profit
margins did not justify the bids for most manufacturers. Also,
as the demand for LED bulbs picked up, sales in the retail mar-
ket were more profitable. In the later stages of program, lighting
manufacturers’ body requested EESL to withdraw the program
as the substantial price difference between a bulb sold under
the UJALA program and that in a retail shop was hindering
their retail sales.
A second observation is regarding the objective of the pro-
gram. The program’s core objective was market transformation
to LED bulbs. Promoting domestic manufacturing and small
scale industry were secondary objectives. EESL’s initial bidding
rounds did not require the bid winners to manufacture all the
bulbs for an order in India. This made sense as India lacked
the production capacity to match the bulk orders. However, in
later bidding rounds, EESL required manufacturers to supply
only domestically manufactured bulbs. Similarly, EESL’s bid-
ding criteria reserved 20 % of total quantity in a bid to small
manufacturers provided that they could meet all the technical
requirements, and provided that their price for LED bulbs was
within 15 % of the lowest price discovered. There were some
bids from small scale manufacturers in initial bids. However,
4. MONITORING AND EVALUATION FOR GREATER IMPACT
the bulbs procured faced some quality issues following which
the criterion was removed. In both the cases, EESL focused on
the primary objective and gradually included secondary objec-
tives as long as they did not conflict with the former.
Getting electricity distribution utilities on-board
Getting electricity distribution utilities to participate in en-
ergy efficiency programs is a significantly challenging task in
India. Both the utilities and the state regulatory commissions
put these programs low priority primarily due to their lack of
credibility (PEG 2014). The utilities also lack the skills and re-
sources to implement such programs (ibid). EESL addressed
this challenge in several ways. First, it significantly reduced the
role of utilities in the program. They were only responsible for
providing office space, marketing, and recovering the money
from people who bought LED bulbs through the on-bill financ-
ing mechanism (this number in turn was very small). They
were not responsible for crucial tasks like bidding, distribution
of LED bulbs, data collection, and warranty. This made it very
convenient for the utilities to participate in the program. Also,
EESL came up with a standard template for the agreement to be
signed with a utility on implementation of the UJALA program
in its territory. This resulted in faster approval of the program
by the state regulatory commissions. A final contributor to get-
ting the utilities on board was the ownership of the program
by the prime minister and the minister for power. Most of the
distribution utilities in India are susceptible to political influ-
ence which also helped the faster buy-in of the program from
them. EESL acted fast and took advantage of the momentum to
disseminate the program all over India. The flip side of keeping
the role of the utility to a minimum is a complete lack of own-
ership on their part. This was observed in our interviews with
utility officials. Most of the questions related to programs were
directed to EESL. Although the utilities reported significant
savings from the program, they did not conduct any systematic
studies to determine the impact on the utility’s peak demand
and energy sales. There are no cases where savings from UJALA
have been factored into the utility’s power planning exercise.
Distribution
At the program’s peak, EESL’s small team was coordinating
sales of six hundred thousand LED bulbs per day across the
country. EESL achieved this by hiring local vendors in differ-
ent states and large cities. These vendors were given targets of
selling a stipulated number of LED bulbs in a short amount of
time (EESL 2015b). Penalties could be levied if the targets were
not met. The vendors were required to create a detailed distri-
bution plan along with a weekly forecast of their requirements
of LED bulbs. They were supposed to report with daily sales
to an EESL supervisor. They were also required to manage the
inventories of LED bulbs. Although there are no public records
of whether these processes were followed, EESL’s record sale
of 230 million LED bulbs in three years is a testimony to their
effectiveness.
However, the singular focus on the sales numbers for LED
bulbs may have resulted in oversight when it came to other
aspects of distribution. EESL required each distribution kiosk
to have a dedicated person to verify, record, and update data
on each buyer. An updated database on the participants of the
UJALA program can serve two purposes. The database can be
4-257-19 CHUNEKAR ET AL
useful when conducting evaluations of the program. A statisti-
cal analysis of the monthly electricity bills of participants and
non-participants before and after the program can be conduct-
ed to estimate savings from the program (Davis, Fuchs, and
Gertler 2012). The database can also serve as a sampling frame
to select random households which could be surveyed to un-
derstand their usage of LED bulbs and their experience with
the programs. This can provide valuable inputs on program im-
plementation and mid-course correction required, if any. EESL
collected the data on all the participants in the Puducherry pi-
lot program. However, as the popularity of the program grew,
the data collection seems to have been discontinued probably
due to hassles involved in the same. Only the data from con-
sumers who bought LED bulbs using on-bill financing was col-
lected and maintained.
The second aspect of distribution which received less atten-
tion was the on-bill financing mechanism. The objective of
on-bill financing is to bring down the upfront cost of the LED
bulb to the price of an incandescent bulb. However, our inter-
views with different utility officials indicate that most of the
utilities discontinued on-bill financing. The on-bill financing
mechanism creates hassles for all the actors. Distribution ven-
dors have to vet the consumers to see if they have any arrears.
Utilities have to change their billing system in order to include
the dues that need to be recovered from the consumers, in their
electricity bill. EESL has to recover the dues from the utility.
Hence, the general view seems to be that people probably do
not need on-bill financing if the bulbs are selling in such large
quantities. However, as can be seen from industry numbers and
our consumer surveys, the bulk of the people buying LED bulbs
are those who would have bought CFLs. The on-bill financing
mechanism is important for targeting the low income house-
holds that are more likely to buy incandescent bulbs with high
discount rates.
A final aspect of the distribution that has been given short
shrift is the exchange of old bulbs. In the Puducherry pilot,
EESL required every household to submit three incandescent
bulbs in exchange for three LED bulbs. However, quite a few
people bought incandescent bulbs to submit to EESL, some still
in their brand new packaging. As per the design of the pro-
gram, EESL had to destroy these bulbs. A mandatory exchange
program can thus have unintended consequences. However, as
we reported earlier, 44 % of the surveyed households discard-
ed their old bulbs, a majority of them being CFLs containing
mercury. Most of the Indian cities do not have good disposal
mechanisms for CFLs and most of them will have found their
way to landfills, where they will be leaching mercury into the
soil. EESL could have collaborated with electronic waste manu-
facturers and opened up electronic waste collection centres for
voluntary submission of CFLs along with the LED distribution
kiosks. This could have relieved the burden on EESL as well as
prevented all the CFLs from being dumped in landfills or being
improperly discarded.
Monitoring and evaluation
EESL had a three-tier approach to ensure the quality of LED
bulbs (EESL 2015a). In the first stage, manufacturers were re-
quired to self-certify their LED bulbs by submitting test reports
from accredited testing laboratories showing compliance with
standards specified in the bidding documents. In the second
ECEEE SUMMER STUDY PROCEEDINGS  741
4-257-19 CHUNEKAR ET AL
Bulb Failure Rate
16% 14%
14%
12%
10%
8% 6%
6%
4%
2%
2%
0%
Pune Lucknow Puducherry
Figure 4. Failure rate and exchange rate of UJALA bulbs in surveyed households (Bulbs in Pune and Lucknow were sold one year prior and
those in Puducherry were sold three years prior to the survey).
stage, EESL was to conduct tests on samples of LED bulbs
picked up from manufacturers’ facilities and field locations.
Finally, EESL had a 24/7 call centre which consumers could
call to report on the failure of their LED bulbs bought under
UJALA. Manufacturers were required to provide a three-year
warranty and deal with any warranty issues within 72 hours.
EESL was also supposed to retain 30 % of the contract value
over the contract duration to ensure that manufacturers take
care of warranty issues.
There is no public data on whether EESL conducted any
random check tests. According to the call centre data during
January to October 2015, only about 0.1 % of the total bulbs
sold by that date had failed. EESL also conducted a survey of
households in Puducherry and the state of Andhra Pradesh and
found the failure rate at less than 1 %. In our survey, we found
the failure rate to be 2 % in Pune, 6 % in Lucknow and 14 % in
Puducherry (see Figure 4). Interestingly very few households
actually replaced their bulbs under the warranty. One reason
reported in our survey was the inconvenience of availing of the
warranty. People bought LED bulbs from temporary kiosks set
up in their locality but had to go to local utility offices to ex-
change the bulbs. Good quality LED bulbs and a convenient
warranty process is essential to increase people’s confidence in
LED bulbs so that they buy LED bulbs even when the program
is withdrawn. Our survey indicated that only 38 % of the re-
spondents in Puducherry would buy LED bulbs in the future
compared to 81 % in Pune and 87 % in Lucknow. This may
be attributed to the higher failure rate of LED bulbs combined
with lower rates of availing of the warranty, observed in Pu-
ducherry.
Conclusion
In this paper, we have assessed the varied impacts of India’s
large-scale LED bulb program, UJALA. It has succeeded in
creating a large market for LED bulbs in India using the no-
subsidy, bulk procurement model. A sharp drop in prices of
LED bulbs can be attributed to the economies of scale facili-
tated by UJALA’s demand aggregation as well as the global
trends in reduction of LED chip prices. There are some con-
cerns about the quality of LED bulbs available in the Indian
markets, which warrant a strong compliance mechanism with
the existing standards. The growth in LED sales has had a sub-
742  ECEEE 2019 SUMMER STUDY
4. MONITORING AND EVALUATION FOR GREATER IMPACT
Exchange rate of failed bulbs
35%
30%
30%
24%
25%
20%
15%
10%
10%
5%
0%
Pune Lucknow Puducherry
stantial negative impact on the sales of CFLs while the sales
of incandescent bulbs have seen a relatively smaller decline.
The program now needs to focus on lower income households
in rural areas which have a higher inclination toward buying
incandescent bulbs. A number of innovative processes like fast
and transparent bidding, effective distribution, and innovative
marketing were responsible for the program’s success. How-
ever, some processes like data collection, a convenient warranty
process, and disposal of old bulbs, can be improved. There are
some lessons for future programs for other appliances too. The
streamlined procurement processes and innovative marketing
campaigns from the UJALA model have a significant market
transformation potential for other appliances as well. However,
the speed and scale of the success of this program was partly
because of the particular characteristics of the LED bulbs; easy
to install and store, cheaper than other appliances, and an inter-
national trend of falling prices. This may not be true for other
appliances and hence programs for these appliances should not
be burdened with similar expectations. Furthermore, stricter
monitoring and evaluation should be incorporated in the pro-
gram design to ensure the quality of the appliances, compli-
ance of various processes, proper disposal of old appliances,
and realistic calculation of achieved savings. A well designed
bulk procurement program for each of the various household
appliances in India can result in multiple social, economic, and
environmental benefits to its citizens.
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