CFL sales spike on awareness

FE Team | Published: March 24, 2011 00:00:00 | Updated: February 01, 2018 00:00:00

Arafat Ara
The sale of compact fluorescent lamp (CFL), popularly known as energy saving bulb, has witnessed a notable growth due to its lower energy consumption and growing awareness among consumers, traders said Wednesday. The tariff-hike of electricity is also causing the people to replace the maximum electricity-consuming incandescent bulbs with the energy efficient CFLs, they said. "The average CFL sale peaked up six times in the past three years due to growing awareness among the consumers backed by a government programme of distributing CFLs at free of cost," said Kader Khan, a leader of CFL Manufacturers Association. He said the CFL sale was only 2.0 to 2.5 million pieces in 2007, which ramped up to around 15 million pieces per annum in recent years. CFL consumption by consumers and its production in the local market are also growing sharply, he said. Khan, also general manager of CFL producing Bangladesh Lamps Limited of Transcom Group, said the sale of CFL in urban areas is much higher than that in rural areas as the level of awareness is much low in the remote areas. Besides, the low-income groups of people are still making more purchases of incandescent bulbs due to higher prices of CFLs, he said. A CFL bulb costs around Tk 280, while the price of a similar illumination-capacity traditional incandescent bulb is only Tk 25. "We can sell some 10 to 20 pieces of CFL a day, while one or two pieces of incandescent fluorescent bulbs are sold in a week," said Abadullah, a salesman of Mollah Enterprise in New Market in the city. Khairul Amin, another salesman of Padma Electric World at Electric Plaza Market in the city, said the customers do rarely come to buy incandescent bulbs to his shop. "We will not keep storage of any incandescent bulb in future as its sale has dropped drastically," Amin said. Conscious consumers are buying CFLs also in order to help lower their monthly electricity bills. "We paid the electricity bill at Tk 2,200 to 2,300 a month when we used incandescent bulbs. But now we pay around Tk 1800 a month as we have replaced incandescent bulbs with the energy saving CFLs," said Rana Ahmed, a consumer. The long-time warranty of CFLs, which is of a minimum period of one year, is also attracting clients to buy energy efficient bulbs, he said. The illumination capacity of a CFL is almost the same as a tube light but its installation is hassle-free, he said. Meanwhile, CFL manufacturers have said the high value added tax (VAT), which is 37 per cent, has made the energy-saving bulbs costly. If the government reduces VAT on CFL, its price will go down within the reach of low-income groups which will ultimately boost electricity savings significantly. According to Dhaka Power Distribution Company (DPDC), nearly 300 megawatts of electricity is now being saved daily after the free distribution of CFLs across the country. The government distributed 5.50 million CFLs among the consumers in the selected areas of 27 districts including the capital in June last year. It has also planned to distribute 22.50 million more CFLs at free of cost by June 2011.