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| 1857: Gas light (Chitpur) 1889: Electric light (Harrison Road/MG Road) 1970: Fluorescent lamps 1990: Sodium vapour lamps 2009: CFLs 2010: LED lamps |
The Calcutta Municipal Corporation has taken up a pilot project to illuminate parts of the city with environment-friendly light-emitting-diode (LED) lamps.
“If we find that LED bulbs are economical and fully meet the requirements of street lighting, we are ready to replace all our existing street lamps with LED ones,” said mayor Sovan Chatterjee after a meeting on the new lights at the civic headquarters on Wednesday.
The overhaul, if it happens, will be the fifth since gaslights were installed on city roads after the Sepoy Mutiny in 1857.
LED lamps emit soft light like compact fluorescent lamps (CFLs) but unlike them are free of mercury and hence, easier to dispose of.
According to an estimate, Calcutta has nearly 200,000 sodium vapour street lamps. Under the pilot project, 273 of them will be replaced with LED bulbs.
Corporation Place, Kalighat, Vivekananda Road, Bondel Road and Narkeldanga Main Road are some of the areas chosen for the roll out of the project.
The new lights have already been installed outside the civic headquarters.
The cost of the pilot project will be shared equally by the civic body and the central government’s Bureau of Energy Efficiency.
Climate Group, an international NGO, is lending technical expertise to the project. The organisation has helped introduce LED lamps in New York, London, Shanghai and Hong Kong.
“Calcutta has 180,000 street lights and hence, the potential to scale up deployment of this clean technology is considerable,” said municipal commissioner Arnab Roy.
“Use of LED lamps will reduce power consumption by 30 to 50 per cent. Power consumption can be cut down by 70 per cent by installing some additional controls,” said Aditi Dass of Climate Group.
“The project will help the CMC understand ways it can substantially cut emissions and expenditure on energy over the next few years. The insights gained will be shared with cities in India and abroad,” she added.
The civic authorities pay CESC Rs 60 crore annually as power bill.
The biggest disadvantage of LED lamps is that they are at least three times more expensive than the other options.
“While a LED lamp will cost three times more than a sodium vapour lamp, it can burn for more than 50,000 hours, four times the 12,000-hour life span of sodium vapour lights,” said mayoral council member (lighting) Manzar Iqbal.
