TS to exploit solar energy for agriculture operations

Hyderabad: In a significant move, Telangana State government decided to make use of solar energy for agriculture purpose. It even constituted a four-member committee which included senior IAS officials Nagi Reddy, Pradeep Chandra, S K Joshi and Poonam Malakondaiah to study the feasibility of replacing all the existing pump sets with solar pump sets.

Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao held a review meeting in this connection at Secretariat on Friday in which representatives of Kirloskar group also took part. He wanted a detailed analysis of the savings and the estimation of the overall cost before a massive project to change the pumps sets is considered.

Kirloskar delegation submitted proposals to install solar pump sets and also evincing interest to maintain them for 10 years. As per the plan, it is proposed to take up a pilot project in the State to establish solar pump sets and follow this up with one lakh pump sets in first phase and then take it up on a bigger scale later.

The State has more than 20 lakh agriculture pump sets. They consume about 13 million units of energy a day. Chief Minister pointed out that State was spending Rs 15 crore a day for supplying 7 hours of power to farmers. Given the huge financial implications of supplying power to the pump sets, the State wanted to evaluate how the solar pump sets would work out in the long run.

It may be mentioned here that Telangana State has earmarked Rs. 240 crore for solar pump sets in the Budget for a pilot project.