Power Minister exhorts industry to ‘Make in India’ for the world
Addressing a Media Summit here, he said the Indian industry needs to look around to compete in external markets and be able to export.
In order to replace diesel pump sets with solar powered pumps, the Union Government will soon come out with a scheme to promote stand-alone off-grid solar pumps and another for solarisation of grid-connected solar pumps.
The Power Ministry is in the process of formulating a new scheme for solar pumps to promote stand-alone solar off-grid pumps with an objective to replace existing diesel pump sets, said Minister of state for Power R K Singh, while briefing the consultative committee attached to the Ministries of Power and New & Renewable Energy on Tuesday.
The government will also come out with a new scheme for solarisation of grid connected solar pumps for areas where agriculture feed is separated, the minister said. Diesel water pumps is the main input cost for a farmer specially when rainfall is less or erratic.
Advertisement
“Use of solar pumps has shown very good results in areas where power is erratic or not available and has helped farmers bring down input costs. In addition to this it saves precious diesel fuel,” said a senior officer of the Power Ministry.
While appreciating government initiatives to promote solar energy, the members of the consultative committee asked the ministry to improve the transmission and distribution infrastructure. They suggested the ministry monitor the quality of distribution infrastructure and fix accountability on the ground level to ensure last mile coverage for beneficiaries.
The consultative committee met in Guwahati under the chairmanship of R K Singh to review the functioning of NHPC and the implementation of the solar rooftop and solar pump programme.
Advertisement
