By IANS,
Bangalore : Indian cricket legend Kapil Dev Monday entered into a commercial agreement with former South African skipper Clive Rice to market energy efficient street lights in the Indian sub-continent.
Kapil’s newly formed company Berget Buildcond Ltd signed a MoU (memorandum of agreement) here with Rice’s marketing firm Enviro-Light Technologies of South Africa to sell eco-friendly and energy-saving street lights to state-run civic corporations and enterprises across the country.
“Indian streets need high quality night lighting in view of the current security scenario, especially following the Mumbai terror attacks 26/11. As sodium vapour lamps do not give clear view of the objects, our streets need bright colour-fluorescent lamps under which you can identify even a person in a moving car,” Kapil told reporters on the sidelines of an international engineering and technology trade fair here.
The South Africa-based Enviro-Light specialises in the design, supply and installation of energy efficient lighting systems to reduce energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions.
The colour-fluorescent lamps are manufactured by Hella SA (Pty) Ltd and Visa-Rama of South Africa holds the patent for the reflector, which is based on automotive headlight technology.
“I am excited to team-up with Kapil to improve India’s lighting infrastructure with our products, which are energy efficient without light deficiency. The Enviro-Light reflector system produces optimum photometrics that maximises light output in the target areas,” Rice said.
Enviro-Light has recently shipped about 400 lamps to Berget Buildcond for two pilot projects in Assam and field trials in townships and residential colonies to improve lighting in ‘B’ class streets, which are typically service roads or internal roads where sensitive or vital installations are located.
“Going forward, we plan to set up a manufacturing plant in India to produce Enviro-Light lamps in the next two years by which time we hope to build the scale to justify local production. There is a huge potential in the replacement and newer markets for colour-fluorescent lamps. Investment and location details are yet to be worked out,” Kapil said.
As a futuristic technology, Kapil is upbeat about promoting and marketing energy-saving and eco-friendly lighting products in India, which is an energy-starved country.
“Unlike traditional and sodium vapour lamps, which consume about 70-80 watts of energy, our 57 watt street lights use only 54 watts because of an electronic ballast, which allows for about 70 percent energy saving,” Rice pointed out.
With five-year warranty, Enviro-Light bulbs last for about 20,000 hours or five-six years of night lighting.
Besides making product presentations and demos across the country, Kapil is in discussions with the Indian Railways, civic corporations, housing societies and townships of state-run enterprises and private colonies to aggressively promote the next-generation lighting product.
Kapil’s another marketing venture Dev Musco Lighting Ltd deals with stadium lighting and lamps in India. As a joint venture with the US-based leading lighting firm Musco, Kapil has ‘lit’ cricket stadiums in Mohali, Ahmedabad and Panchukla and tennis and football stadiums in Bangalore.
“I am making a presentation to Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dixit next week to demonstrate the benefits of our stadium and street light products for the 2010 Commonwealth Games. I hope the organisers will take advantage of the technology behind our lighting products,” Kapil added.
As the products attract 31 percent customs duty and 12.5 percent value added tax (VAT), Kapil plans to seek reliefs from the government to encourage end-users to benefit from such energy-efficient and cost-saving lighting products.