The current energy consumption pattern of India’s agricultural sector is mired in inefficiency. Despite farmers being dependent on the sun for most farming activities, irrigation usually happens quite late at night. This is due to the practice of supplying subsidised electricity to farmers during the midnight hours.
Done with the intent of reducing the strain on the grid, owing to the daytime loads, the practice inadvertently leads to increased water and energy wastage, as the pumps run throughout the night. Therefore, the energy wastage is compounded further, with disruption in farm yields and significant delays in irrigation of farms. To put things in perspective, an area that could be irrigated in 24 hours, ends up taking almost 4-5 nights to irrigate completely.
India’s agricultural sector is responsible for the consumption of over 18% of overall national electricity usage. However, its contribution to the GDP in just over 5%. This discrepancy has been prevalent since the 1970s, when the Green Revolution was on. Well-intentioned reforms like subsidised electricity supply have had the adverse effect of increasing the
