The Union government’s approval for solar-powered agriculture pumps last week is just a small part of its programme to provide power for agriculture.
While the Centre’s emphasis was on household electrification, power for agriculture had so far not been pushed with much enthusiasm. The reasons range from it being more capital-intensive to power supply for agriculture being mostly free or subsidised.
The Rural Electrification Corporation was set up in 1969 as a response to the “pressing exigencies” of severe drought by reducing the dependence of agriculture on monsoons, and instead “energising agricultural pump-sets for optimised irrigation”. The emphasis, however, has only been on household electrification.
