The Maharashtra government will soon launch a scheme to facilitate additional income to farmers by selling surplus power generated by their solar pump sets.

This was announced here on Friday by Deputy Chief Minister and Energy Minister, Devendra Fadnavis.

The government’s move is important as the state has witnessed transition from farmers waiting for years to get grid connection for agriculture pumps to getting pumps on demand, thanks to Solar Agriculture Pump on Demand (SAPD) scheme of the state government.

He was speaking after inaugurating a registration website for farmers for the SAPD scheme developed by the Maharashtra State Electricity Distribution Company Limited (MSEDCL).

He also published a booklet about the scheme and a poster.

“A scheme will be launched so that surplus power generated in solar panels of agriculture pumps can be sent to the grid and be sold to power companies so that farmers will get additional income. Thus, farmers will be earning money by selling power instead of paying power bills,” said Fadnavis.

He said that before 2014, there was serious problem of paid pending cases. After that during his government, emphasis was given on providing power connections to farmers.

“Now thanks to SAPD, farmers are getting solar pumps on demand with 90 per cent subsidy. Due to solar pumps, farmers are getting day time quality power supply. They won’t be required to pay bills for the next 25 years as there will be solar power generation for that period. If we consider a 7.5 HP pump, then a farmer will save Rs 10 lakh in a 25-year period. This scheme has been implemented on the basis of the PM Kusum B scheme,” he added.

He said that under the Mukhyamantri Saur Krushi Vahini Yojana 2.0, agreements for 12,000 MW have been done and projects have started.

Power generation will start from those projects with full capacity in the next two years.

“Hence farmers will get 100 per cent solar energy for irrigation. Apart from farmers getting green energy, a lot of funds for subsidy and cross subsidy will be saved,” he added.

MahaVitaran CMD Lokesh Chandra said there has been emphasis on using renewable energy for farmers in the last two-and-a-half years.

“At one point of time there were 8.5 lakh farmers waiting for power connection but now the number of paid pending cases is negligible. Now paid pending problem will become history due to SAPD. Under this scheme, one million agriculture solar pumps will be installed in the state.

“After the scheme was launched, two lakh farmers registered and paid their share and out of them pumps have been installed in farms of 45,000 growers in the last six months and it is a record. Maharashtra is on number one position in the country regarding installation of solar pumps,” he added.