No proposal to give free solar pumps to farmers

By
Daily Excelsior
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NEW DELHI, July 2:
There is no proposal to give free solar pumps to farmers, but a scheme to provide solar panels and pumps to farmers with the Centre and state Government each sharing 30 per cent of its cost has been approved and will be rolled out soon, the Government Tuesday said.
Replying to supplementaries during Question Hour in the Rajya Sabha, Minister of State for New and Renewable Energy and Power R K Singh said, “There is no proposal to give free solar pumps to farmers.”
“We have a scheme which has recently been approved and we propose to launch it quickly whereby we will give 30 per cent of the cost and we expect the state government to give 30 per cent of the cost for giving solar panels and pumps to farmers,” he informed the House.
In reply to another supplementary, the minister said the Government has electrified every village and hamlet in the state of Rajasthan.
Asked whether there was a proposal to produce solar power for sale in other states, the minister said, “We already have such a scheme whereby solar energy is produced and about 29,000 MW of large solar plants have been established and about 13,000 MW are under installation.”
He said in these solar plants, power is generated in one state and is transmitted to other states, whichever state requires it and thus this scheme is already in operation.
“We have already connected every hamlet and every village even in the north eastern states. A large number of these hamlets and villages have been connected through off-grid solutions which includes solar panels and we have connected every house also, apart from connecting every village and hamlet,” he said with regard to Nagaland.
In a written reply to a question in the Rajya Sabha, Singh said, “The Remote Village Electrification Programme was discontinued by the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy from 2012-13. Since then all villages in the country have been electrified under Deen Dayal Upadhyay Gram Jyoti Yojana (DDUGJY) administered by the Ministry of Power.” (PTI)

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