(ET)
Solar pumps have emerged as a key tool for the government to achieve its ambition of doubling farmers’ income by 2022. Rajasthan is one of the few states to have taken a lead in popularizing solar pumps at a mass scale in rural areas and the Budget announcement is likely to add further impetus. In the Budget speech, the finance minister said the PM-Kusum scheme removed farmers’ dependence on diesel and kerosene and linked pump sets to solar energy.
“Now, I propose to expand the scheme to provide 20 lakh farmers for setting up stand-alone solar pumps; further we shall also help another 15 lakh farmers solarise their grid-connected pump sets,” she said in her speech. In addition, the government also proposed a scheme to enable farmers to set up solar power generation capacity on their fallow or barren lands and to sell it to the grid, would be operationalized. The Kusum scheme is implanted by the energy department in Rajasthan and has set a tariff of Rs 3.14 per unit at which the department will buy power from farmers or investors.
