Farmers to earn income from selling electricity generated by solar pumps : Fadnavis

The Maharashtra government is set to launch a new scheme to help farmers earn extra income by selling surplus electricity produced from their solar pump sets.

Devendra Fadnavis Deputy Chief Minister and Energy Minister of Maharashtra announced on Friday that if this initiative is implemented farmers can send the extra power generated by their solar pumps to the electricity grid and sell it to power companies.

This scheme is part of the Solar Agriculture Pump on Demand (SAPD) program, which has been providing solar pumps to farmers with a 90% subsidy. This move will make a major change from where many farmers had to wait years for grid connections for their agricultural pumps.

Fadnavis highlighted that before 2014, there were many pending power connection cases for farmers. However, with the SAPD scheme, these problems are being resolved, and farmers are receiving solar pumps quickly.

These solar pumps also ensure that farmers receive high-quality daytime electricity for irrigation, with no power bills for the next 25 years. If we consider a 7.5 HP pump, a farmer may save Rs 10 lakh over 25 years. This strategy was implemented based on the PM Kusum B scheme.

The savings from using a solar pump over 25 years can go up to Rs 10 lakh for a farmer with a   7.5 HP pump.

Additionally, the government has signed agreements for 12,000 MW of solar power projects under the Mukhyamantri Saur Krushi Vahini Yojana 2.0, and these projects will soon start generating power. This initiative not only benefits farmers with clean energy but also helps the state with subsidies.

MahaVitaran CMD Lokesh Chandra mentioned that this scheme will make it easy and convenient for farmers to issue the pending power connection. So far, two lakh farmers have registered for solar pumps, with 45,000 pumps already installed in the last six months.

This effort has made Maharashtra a leader in the installation of solar pumps in India.