To help the farmers over-come power crisis, improve economic viability and embrace cleaner energy concept, the Department of Agriculture is all set to distribute 5 HP solar-powered pump sets at subsidised rates during the current fiscal.
Deputy Director of Agriculture P. Santhanakrishnan told The Hindu that the subsidy would be to the tune of 80 per cent of the unit cost of Rs. 4 lakh estimated for the pumps that would be distributed to the farmers.
The amount required to subsidise the cost would be taken from the corpus created under Rashtriya Krishi Vikas Yojana (RKVY).
“The scheme will be implemented by the Department of Agriculture in association with the Tamil Nadu Energy Development Agency,” agriculture department sources added.
The solar-powered pumps, which will run on the electricity generated by photovoltaic cell, can be extremely useful for the farmers whenever the grid electricity is unavailable, he said.
The interested farmers who wished to procure solar powered pump sets at subsidised rates could contact the block agriculture extension centres for more details.