To ensure the long-term sustainability of agriculture, the Union government has been promoting the application of micro-irrigation and solar energy in agriculture.
Micro-irrigation saves water, improves nutrient-use efficiency, and enhances crop yields and resilience to climate change. Solar power, a renewable and clean energy source for groundwater extraction, reduces carbon footprint. It reduces the fiscal burden due to electricity subsidies and diesel import.
Most States provide free or heavily subsidised electricity for irrigation. Furthermore, the country imports more than 85 per cent of its total diesel requirement.
There is a strong complementarity between micro-irrigation and solar energy, which has not been harnessed. Micro-irrigation scheme is implemented through the ‘Per Drop More Crop (PDMC)’ component of the Pradhan Mantri Krishi Sinchayee Yojana (PMKSY) by the Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare and solar energy use in agriculture is promoted through the Pradhan Mantri Kisan Urja Suraksha evam Utthaan Mahabhiyan (PMKUSUM) by the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy.
If micro-irrigation and solar pumps are coupled, there will be several economic, ecological, and environmental benefits.
The benefits
First, micro-irrigation can save 15-50 per cent of water; and a similar saving is expected in energy used for pumping groundwater. The saved energy can be sold to power utilities or used for other farm and non-farm activities.
Second, with less energy cost and higher crop yield, solar-powered micro-irrigation improves returns from farming. Third, using solar power with micro-irrigation instead of flood-irrigation reduces the risk of over-extraction of groundwater due to unrestricted access to solar energy. Fourth, solarization of fossil fuel-based electric and diesel pumps lowers carbon footprints.
The government provides a 60 per cent subsidy on solar pumps and 45-55 per cent on micro-irrigation system. Some States also top-up the existing subsidy on micro-irrigation. Capital investment in a subsidised solar-powered micro-irrigation system to replace a diesel-operated pump can be recovered from saving on diesel costs alone in two years.
On the other hand, replacing an electric pump with a solar-powered micro-irrigation system is not economically feasible if saving in electricity expenditure alone is considered because of the subsidized or free provision of electricity in most States. Nevertheless, if electricity subsidy is re-purposed as capital subsidy for solar pumps, the economic viability of solar-powered micro-irrigation systems improves.
The guidelines of both PMKUSUM and PMKSY explicitly encourage States for their convergence but do not provide a strategic plan and institutional arrangements to do so. In most States, these are implemented independently of each other and by different agencies and departments. Their effective convergence requires a single-window approach for all the processes, from registering beneficiaries to installing a solar-powered micro-irrigation system. The other option for their joint implementation is through Special Purpose Vehicles, as in Andhra Pradesh and Gujarat, for micro-irrigation.
India has the potential of bringing 88.7 million hectares under micro-irrigation and tapping 102.4 gigawatts of solar power for irrigation. Unfortunately, only 17.6 per cent of the potential of micro-irrigation and 2.6 per cent of the solar power potential for irrigation has been tapped.
As India targets achieving net zero emissions by 2070, the joint implementation of micro-irrigation and solar power technologies can contribute towards achieving the target.
Srivastava is Senior Scientist and Kishore is Scientist (Senior Scale) at ICAR-National Institute of Agricultural Economics and Policy Research