Presentation by A Kishore, International Food Policy Research Institute, at the CCAFS Workshop on Institutions and Policies to Scale out Climate Smart Agriculture held between 2-5 December 2013, in Colombo, Sri Lanka.

1. Solar Pumps: Harnessing the Sun
for an Ever-green Revolution in
Bihar
Avinash Kishore, PK Joshi and Divya Pandey
2nd December, 2013
Avinash Kishore, PK Joshi and Divya Pandey

2. Frequent droughts have severely affected
agriculture in Bihar in recent years
680
40.00
630
30.00
Value of Paddy (2004-05 prices)
% deviation from mean rainfall
580
20.00
530
10.00
480
0.00
430
-10.00
380
-20.00
330
-30.00
280
-40.00
230
180
-50.00
2004-05
2005-06
2006-07
2007-08
2008-09
2009-10
2010-11
2011-12

3. Drought in 33 of 38 districts in 2013. Severe drought in 9
districts
Year (NSS Round)
Head Count Ratio (HCR)
2004-05 (61st)
55.7%
2009-10 (66th)
55.3%
2011-12 (68th)
34.06%
2013-14***
~45%***
If 2009-10 is a any guide, drought this year will push >15
million people below the poverty line in Bihar
Effective drought proofing is essential to poverty reduction in
the state

4. “The Energy-squeeze” in Bihar’s Agriculture
 Groundwater is the best bet against droughts
(Dhawan, 1986)
 But groundwater is economically scarce in Bihar
• >90% farmers depend on diesel pump-sets
• Price of diesel has nearly doubled in last eight years
• Farmers practice deficit irrigation in Rabi, wait for rains in
Kharif and seldom grow summer crops
 Affordable access to groundwater is essential
for drought-proofing

5. Policy response
 Easy subsidy on diesel pumps
 Bihar
does not need more pumps; it needs cheaper
energy
 Subsidy on diesel in drought years
 ~$0.15
billion in 2013 @ 40cents/liter
 But
 Low
awareness & poor off-take (IWMI, 2012)
 High leakage & delayed in payments, other hassles
 Water buyers are often left-out; same for tenants
 Diesel subsidy is poorly targeted, ineffective

6. Could Solar pumps be a solution to “energysqueeze”?
In spite of its high
capital cost, lifecycle cost of a solar
pump is lower than
a diesel pump now

7. The Solar Powered Public Tubewells in
Bihar

8. The solar pump experiment in Bihar
 34 defunct PTWs revived in Nalanda district using
solar panels in March-April 2012
 Each tubewell draws power from six solar panels
• Covers ~100 sq. meter of land
 Runs a 7.5 hp submersible pump with a discharge
capacity of 70m3/hr

9. Bihar government’s solar pump experiment
(cont’d)
 Pumps are installed in lands donated by farmers
 WUAs formed to manage the PTW
• The land donor is often the de-facto manager of the PTW
 Irrigation fee of Rs. 400/ha/watering
• The WUA (the land-owner) keeps 90% irrigation fee for
repair and maintenance

10% is deposited with the department

10. Our Study
 We picked 16 of the 34 command by a lottery
 10 beneficiaries selected randomly for each
PTW(total 160 farmers)
 5 non-beneficiary farmers also selected on
each PTW (total 80 farmers)
 Farmers surveyed in
 Rabi 2012-13: 3 rounds of recall surveys
 Kharif 2013: 1 round (around transplantation)

11. Sampling and data collection (cont’d)
 In rabi season, data was collected for
 3 solar plots of the solar farmers
 1 non-solar plot of the solar farmers
 1 non-solar plot of the non-solar farmers
 In kharif season, data was collected for paddy cultivation for
 Solar and non-solar plots of solar farmers
 all plots of non-solar farmers
 Monthly pump operation data collected from logbooks of the
16 operators in all 4 rounds of survey

12. FINDINGS
INTERNATIONAL FOOD POLICY RESEARCH INSTITUTE

13. Operational setting of the solar pumps (cont’d)
 Average design command area of solar pumps – 8.34 ha
 Actual area served
• 3.5 ha in rabi and
• 4 ha in kharif
 Average # beneficiaries/SPTW = 16 (against potential 35)
 Pumps not operated for 12 days/month
 Few instances of technical glitches
 Defective pipe network and lack of demand (specially in
summer) are the main causes of under-utilization of SPTWs

14. Benefit from SPTW: Wheat
Variables of
interest
Solar plots of solar
farmers
Non-solar plot of
solar farmers
Non-solar plot of
non-solar farmers
Wheat yield
(kg/ha)
2973.663
2565.885
2624.638
Irrigation cost
for wheat
(Rs/ha)
821.4672
2946.771
3238.522
Net benefit from solar pumps to wheat growers = ~Rs. 7000/ha
Gross benefit/SPTW in Rabi = Rs. 25,000

15. Variables
Coefficient
if_solarplot
324.2***
(76.99)
land_owned
-5.633
(35.25)
if_ownboring
-56.05
(79.51)
if_ownapump
58.33
(93.60)
urea_quantity
0.657***
(0.233)
DAP_quantity
0.806***
potash_quantity
(0.268)
4.140***
(1.443)
laborhired_Rs
0.0397**
(0.0155)
Constant
2,511***
(360.4)
Observations
341
R-squared
0.355
Village and caste fixed effects
Standard errors in parentheses
*** p<0.01, ** p<0.05, * p<0.1
Yes

16. 2013: one of the worst drought years in Bihar
 Solar pumps are helping
 Irrigation cost for nursery preparation & maintenance
• Solar farmers – 186 Rs/ha
• Non-solar farmers – 451 Rs/ha
 100% transplantation in command area by 31st August
• yet to happen in 27% of non-command areas
 Irrigation costs (up to 31st August)

Solar plots – 671 Rs/ha

Non-solar – 3137 Rs/ha

17. SPTWs were severely underutilized in summer
season
Variables of interest
Solar farmers
Non-solar farmers
Farmers who grew
summer crops
57 % of solar farmers
28 % of non-solar
farmers
Avg. Area under summer
crops (ha)/farmer
0.06
0.02
• Lack of complimentary inputs (labor, credit and experience)
• Increase in area under summer crops is crucial for viability of
solar pumps

18.  Our findings indicate that irrigation through solar pumps
benefits farmers by -
Increasing yield
Lowering irrigation costs
Increasing cropping intensity
Mitigating impact of drought by enabling timely
transplantation
 encouraging area under water intensive crops like Rabi
maize and vegetables that offer higher returns to land





19. But SPTWs are underutilized
 High capital cost; near zero operational cost
• High capacity utilization is essential to make solar pumps viable
 Possible Remedies
• Investment in water distribution network of PTWs

Command area and # beneficiaries will double
• Incentives for pump operators to increase capacity utilization
• Credit and extension support to farmers to encourage summer crops
 Experiment with subsidized private solar pumps

20. Way forward
 5556 old PTWs in Bihar
• Mostly defunct due to poor power supply and expensive diesel
 900 of them to be revived with a loan from NABARD
 3000 new PTWS to be built
 With proposed design, all of them will fail
 Adding solar panels will cost $ 15,000 or ~$
2000/ha of command area in capital cost
 Additional benefit = $ 500-700/ha/year
» ($ 150 in rabi, $ 150 in kharif, $ 400 in summer)
 Pay-back period of ~3-6 years + effective drought
proofing