The decision follows the success of two pilot projects to distribute these lamps at a small fraction of their cost and get the rest of the money from developed countries through a UN-mediated scheme called the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM), BEE Director General Ajay Mathur said here.

The pilot projects, carried out at Visakhapatnam (Andhra Pradesh) and Yamunanagar (Haryana), helped to sharply cut domestic power consumption, Mathur said at a recent conference on carbon credits organized by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII).

The "Bachat Lamp Yojana" (Lamp Saving Scheme) runs under a tripartite agreement between the central government, a private firm and electricity distribution companies of state governments.

The CDM is meant to help developing countries move to a greener economy, with developed countries paying for the move.

In turn, this would partly offset the liability of industrialized countries to reduce the carbon emissions that are leading to climate change.