Revamping Agriculture Sector through Sustainable Methods for Irrigation with Usage of Solar Water Pumps: A Study of Punjab#^#

This paper is revised copy of paper presented in International Scientific Conference ‘Our Common Future under Climate Change’ in UNESCO Paris, France dated 7–10 July 2015

Sustainable agriculture aims to produce food in a suitable quality and quantity and guarantee food security and land use, crop choice, irrigation and fertilisation would not lead to land degradation and desertification. Usage of Sustainable Agricultural practices is an urgent intervention. These methods include usage of solar energy for irrigation. The well-developed irrigation system is mandatory requirement as farmers in India are facing issues like erratic grid supply, increasing unreliability on monsoon rains and high cost of diesel pumps. The Government of India at the Union level and State Governments had formulated certain policies and programmes to address the issue and launched Solar Water Pumps (SWP) as a solution to irrigate fields adequately as it is environmental friendly and cost effective. MNRE in coordination with Punjab Energy Development Agency (PEDA) have implemented SWP scheme in Punjab for improving irrigation system to increase production of food grain. The article has analysed the need and scope of the implementation of the SWP scheme in Punjab and evaluated the extent to which the scheme has created awareness in the farmers and population involved in agriculture and allied activities while considering the perception of beneficiaries towards SWPs installation process to meet their requirement of energy. The article also discussed the functioning of the government machinery involved in the enforcement of the scheme. It has been found although solar pumps may replace traditional tube wells but fewer subsidies, discontinuity in financial assistance, lack of awareness had made this successful to some extent.