Philips eyes more NEastern states for solar street lights

Philips Lighting India is focusing on solar rural street lights sector in North East and has already few such projects going on in Manipur and Meghalaya.
Besides, the company is currently talking to the Tripura government for supplying solar street lights in Agartala.
"Earlier solar street lights were not viable as these required huge batteries and panels. But we have developed a technology in such a way that now we do not need big batteries and panels. These have become very viable in North East," Philips Lighting Chief Executive Officer (South Asia) Harsh Chitale told PTI here today.
Focussing on this area, the company is supplying solar street lamps to many states in the region, he added.

"We have already implemented Phase I of solar rural lighting projects of two projects in Manipur and Meghalaya. These projects are being implemented by the government," Chitale said.
The company is supplying the solar street lights to government agencies in these two states, he added.

"In Manipur, we have supplied 2,000 solar street lights for interior villages. This has helped in the overall quality of the villages. We are now implementing the second phase of the project," Chitale said.
In Meghalaya, Philips Lighting has already supplied 200 solar street lamps and those have been installed.
"We are now under discussion with Meghalaya government for supplying another set of 800 street lights in the second phase," the CEO said.

What asked if any other state is also interested to install Philips products, Chitale siad: "The company is currently in discussion with Tripura government for solar street lights. We hope some good news will be there soon."
The company today inaugurated 'LightSTUDIO' -- a showroom for institutional lighting solutions -- in Guwahati. With this, Philips Lighting currently has four such showrooms in India. The company currently has two facilities in Vadodara and Mohali, while it produces lighting solutions in 25 other contract manufacturing plants.
In all the 27 plants, a total of around 10,000 people are employed.