The Indian government should make manufacturing standards for LED lights applied in Prakash Path Yojana (PPY) mandatory, The Economics Times cited a Philips spokesperson saying.

The government intends to roll out a nationwide LED streetlight upgrade project throughout 100 cities by March 2016.

Products that do not meet the Indian lighting requirements could give the energy efficiency program a notorious reputation, “…we are working as an industry with the government to say, please don't just make standards, make them mandatory,” said Philips South Asia CEO Harsh Citale.

He reminded the industry about the “failure” of the former CFL scheme in the country. A lot of CFL products flooded the country’s market following implementation of the scheme, but many were poor quality products. The program was set back two years as a result.

"But this time the government is doing it the right way, it has also come with all the standards, and all the LED products should confirm to it," said Citale.

"Like in CFL when standards were made mandatory low quality imports stopped. We believe same will happen here, when they are made mandatory, those who have not designed products for India will not be able to comply and low quality imports will stop," he said.

Citale was speaking at the launch of Philips Hue LED bulbs in India. The company has an active role in Prakash Path Program and is one of the large suppliers in the project. “In fact one of the largest procurement that government has done for Prakash Path... 15 million LED lights was done from us,” said Citale.

The company has expanded its manufacturing capacity in India to make its products fully designed in India, and compliant to Bureau of Industrial standards, he added.