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ABSTRACT

Use of solar pumps has provided a new opportunity to harness the renewable energy sources for irrigation. But in recent years a new challenge has emerged in front of the Indian farmers despite of having all resources he needs for farming, water level in many districts throughout the country has fallen down to such a level that individuals are not having water for drinking and they are buying it like other products. Then how a farmer and from where he will afford to extract it and irrigate his field. In this article I have focused on the sustainability of use of solar pumps for extracting groundwater.

In this world of industrialization, the concept of green economy was proposed to go for development without degrading the environment. Such economy aims to adopt practices that will either release no or less amount of harmful GHGs gases or absorb them into the system and convert them to a form in which they have relatively less potential to cause damage. Using renewable sources of energy like solar, wind, geothermal and tidal energy falls under first category. These energy sources have immense potential in country like India whose topography and location makes it rich in these natural resources. The only thing that limits its use is its initial and maintenance cost that renders it unused/untapped. From recent estimate of petroleum and natural gases worldwide, current rate of utilization and their rising cost in international market, it can be understood that they will no longer be available to us in the near future. The government took initiative and came forward to promote the use of solar energy in the form of solar powered streetlights, solar pumps, solar cooker and many more. Here I would like to focus only on the solar driven irrigation pumps as water scarcity is becoming a challenge not only in agricultural fields but in metro cities as well.

 Irrigation status of India

Indo-Gangetic plains and adjoining areas are well supplied with rivers and their tributaries covering major agricultural states like Punjab, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, West Bengal, Madhya Pradesh, and Chhattisgarh. Despite this groundwater occupy a dominant place with increasing share in Indian agriculture for irrigation since 1960’s.With the onset of green revolution and in order to meet its objectives, significant increase was observed in the groundwater extraction, not only at community level but also a new concept of atomistic or personal irrigation system emerged. This was mainly because of the inefficiency and lack of reliability of public irrigation systems (canal, tube wells) and increasing demographic pressure on land for intensification. The government of India came forward and took steps to encourage credit availability at subsidized rate through private investments. Other factors for colossal rise in groundwater irrigation included technological advancements in drilling, pumping, and simultaneous steady decrease in their cost because of growing irrigation service market, investment in rural electrification, and growing crops having high water requirement under changing rainfall pattern as well as climate (heat waves, persistent period of drought etc.).

In states like Punjab and Haryana, state governments supported the central government’s step and provided free power supply, ushering India in achieving self-sufficiency and food security. After independence more and more area were brought under intensive cultivation in several states, exploiting the natural resources available. The total cropped area remained fairly stable but irrigated area saw rapid rise between 2004 and 2014.As per the reports of Directorate of Economics & Statistics, DAC&FW, and the net sown area in the country remained almost near to 140 million hectares (mha) but the net irrigated area rose from 59.23mha to 68.38mha. If we see the case of gross irrigated area, it rose from 81.08mha to 96.46mha during these years. At present India claims to be self-sufficient in food grain production growing variety of crops throughout the country and is leading in production of milk, pulses and jute, is 2^nd largest of rice, wheat, sugarcane, groundnut, cotton, vegetables and fruit in the world. Indian agriculture contributes approximately 14.4 % to gross value added (GVA) in 2018-19. According to 5^th minor irrigation census of Central Ground Water Board (CGWB), about 89% of the groundwater extracted is used for irrigation purpose.

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How much sustainable is use of solar pumps for groundwater abstraction.pdf