According to government estimates, “widespread use of efficient lighting devices, mainly LEDs” would help the country save 34.7 gigawatts of generating capacity, or roughly 13% of that capacity, the advisory said. The advisory is part of a broader government program to conserve power and adopt cleaner sources of energy as India works toward providing more of its citizens with reliable power. According to the World Bank, roughly 300 million people have no access to electricity.

Power minister Piyush Goyal has said that, overall, conservation can help save $8 billion of electricity annually and provide power to 50 million people.

Saving energy is also part of India’s international commitment to help cut carbon emissions. More than half the country’s electricity is generated using fossil fuels such as coal and natural gas.

The government hopes its drive to promote energy efficiency and buy more LEDs will encourage citizens to make the switch, too. Saurabh Kumar, managing director of Energy Efficiency Services Ltd., a joint venture of companies under the power ministry, is heading a separate program to sell LED bulbs to households for a deeply discounted 10 rupees. That’s about half the price of a regular incandescent bulb, and much cheaper than fluorescent lamps, too.

Usually, the LED bulbs would sell for about 500 rupees.

But they aren’t being subsidized by the government or the company, according to Mr. Kumar. The explanation how that’s supposed to work gets complicated.

It goes like this: In India, electric companies are required to sell power to some customers at a loss. If more of these customers use the LEDs, they will consume less electricity– and the electric company will actually save money by selling less electricity to them at those money-losing rates. This savings will be recouped by the government-owned LED-bulb seller, Energy Efficiency Services, to cover the cost of the super-cheap LEDs, according to Mr. Kumar.

More demand from customers should also bring down the market price of LED bulbs, he added.

The cheaper bulbs will soon be available in Delhi, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh.

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