Mumbai: The Maharashtra government has approved an ambitious project to bring at least 30 per cent agricultural electricity feeders under solar energy by 2025.
A pet project of Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis, it was approved by the Chief Minister Eknath Shinde-led state cabinet Wednesday.
“Supplying electricity through solar agricultural feeders will not only ensure uninterrupted power supply during the day for farmers, but will also significantly reduce the cost of power,” Fadnavis said, speaking to reporters in the Mantralaya, the state secretariat, after the cabinet meeting.
“At present, the power that we supply to farmers costs Rs 7 per unit, of which we recover only Rs 1.5 per unit from them, while the rest is treated as a subsidy. The cost of solar power will be about Rs 3-Rs 3.30. This will greatly reduce the power subsidy that we give to farmers,” the deputy CM said.
Fadnavis has been pushing for solar energy to power day-time electricity requirements of farmers since November 2014, when he was the Maharashtra CM. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) had first tried to implement the project by installing solar agricultural pumps across the state in 2016, but the scheme met with a tepid response.
Under the state government scheme, beneficiaries were to get solar pumps at a highly subsidised rate, having to pay just 5 per cent of the pump’s total cost.
Benefit to 45 lakh farmers
According to a statement by the Maharashtra government, the ambitious project to power agriculture feeders on solar energy will benefit 45 lakh consumers.
Fadnavis also announced that the authorities will acquire private land in a five-kilometre radius around the agricultural feeder, as well as government land that falls in a 5-10-km radius.
He said the state government has decided to take the private lands on lease for 30 years and pay a rent of Rs 1.25 lakh each year to affected farmers.
“The rent will increase by 3 per cent every year, and at the end of the 30 years we will return the land to the farmers,” Fadnavis added. “This will ensure that there is ample availability of land for the project, and there is a great deal of interest from investors too.”
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