After facing the vagaries of monsoons and uncertain crop prospects for decades, scores of tribal farmers living in and around Bangaru Chelka, a remote gram panchayat, have ultimately found an eco-friendly sustainable solution in solar energy to meet their irrigation needs.
Located about 25 km from the district headquarters town of Kothagudem, the gram panchayat, comprising several forest-fringe habitations surrounded by hills in Lakshmidevipalli mandal, has carved a niche for itself in embracing solar energy in a big way for irrigation.
Around 90 solar photovoltaic (PV) panels, presently dotting the farmlands in the gram panchayat, testifies the solar revolution that is gradually gaining ground in the fringe areas of the Regalla reserve forest, considered an erstwhile stronghold of various naxal groups. The solar powered pumpsets installed by the government agencies concerned under the Indira Jala Prabha scheme have turned out to be immensely beneficial to the members of the local tribal farmers’ groups.
The project, originally conceived by the then District Water Management Agency (DWMA) in 2015, has become operational under the aegis of the District Rural Development Agency (DRDA), at an estimated cost of ₹4.76 crore in July last year. Kothagudem MLA Jalagam Venkat Rao’s intervention helped in extending the benefit of solar-powered irrigation facility to as many as 90 tribal farmers’ groups consisting of over 200 tribal farmers.
Thanks to the solar powered water pumping system, the beneficiaries are harnessing solar energy to irrigate over 650 acres under the Bangaru Chelka gram panchayat limits. The project has empowered us to tap the clean and inexhaustible solar energy besides reducing our dependence on the rains for irrigation, said Joga Chandraiah, one of the beneficiaries. Our group has drawn up plans to grow horticulture crops to capitalise on the solar powered irrigation facility, he told The Hindu .
We were earlier solely dependent on the monsoon and our efforts to persuade the Transco officials to provide us three-phase power supply for agriculture had proved futile in the past, said another tribal farmer of the village. They cited lack of feasibility to lay new lines in the forest fringe areas as the reason for this, he recalled.
The green energy initiative will not only protect farmers from the erratic monsoons but help them grow diverse crops, boost farm output and earn sustainable income, said Mr. Jalagam Venkat Rao. The solar PV panels were installed and borewells were dug up in the farmlands of the beneficiaries free of cost. The beneficiaries were trained in proper maintenance of the solar panels which can be rotated as per requirement, to effectively draw sunlight.
