ISSN (Print) - 0012-9976 | ISSN (Online) - 2349-8846

Search

Advanced Search

Articles by Shilp VermaSubscribe to Shilp Verma

Karnataka’s ‘Surya Raitha’ Experiment

Vol. 56, Issue No. 48, 27 Nov, 2021
Neha Durga, Tushaar Shah, Shilp Verma, Manjunatha A V

Solar-powered irrigation has expanded in India at an unprecedented pace—the number of solar irrigation pumps—from less than 4,000 in 2012 to more than 2,50,000 by 2019. It has been argued that besides giving farmers an additional and reliable source of income, grid-connected SIPs also incentivise efficient energy and water use—critical for sustaining groundwater irrigation. The Surya Raitha scheme was the country’s first, state-driven initiative for solarisation of agriculture feeders by replacing subsidy-guzzling, inefficient electric pumps with energy-efficient, net-metered SIPs. An early appraisal of Surya Raitha lauded the scheme as a smart initiative and argued that it could set an example for promoting solar power as a remunerative crop. However, the scheme was eventually executed as a single feeder pilot with some design changes in Nalahalli panchayat from 2015–18. The authors visited the pilot in 2017–18 and 2018–19 to assess if it had delivered the promises of Surya Raitha scheme. The results are a mixed bag and offer important lessons for implementation and scaling out of component C of the Government of India’s Pradhan Mantri Kisan Urja Suraksha evam Utthaan Mahabhiyan policy.

 

India’s Food System in the Time of COVID-19

Vol. 55, Issue No. 15, 11 Apr, 2020
Abhishek, Vaibhav Bhamoriya, Puneet Gupta, Manu Kaushik, Avinash Kishore, Ritesh Kumar, Abhishek Sharma, Shilp Verma

India’s complete lockdown has caused unnecessary disruptions in the food supply chain, with the scarcity of labour making it even worse. A sharp decline in demand is imminent with the financial sector being in a freeze and incomes having shrunk for everyone, except for the small salaried class. Consumer sentiment and business outlook on recovery are bleak. While ensuring the free movement of essential goods and availability and safety of labour can mitigate the immediate disruptions in the supply chain, unclogging the financial sector and restoring optimism in the market will take time and heroic efforts from the government.

Solar Irrigation Pumps and India’s Energy–Irrigation Nexus

Vol. 54, Issue No. 2, 12 Jan, 2019
Shilp Verma, Neha Durga, Tushaar Shah

A response by the co-authors of the article “Promoting Solar Power as a Remunerative Crop” (EPW, 11 November 2017), to Meera Sahasranaman et al’s discussion article “Solar Irrigation Cooperatives: Creating the Frankenstein’s Monster for India’s Groundwater” (EPW, 26 May 2018), enables a proper assessment of the Dhundi experiment and reiterates the critical role that solar irrigation pumps can play in India’s agricultural future.

Promoting Solar Power as a Remunerative Crop

Vol. 52, Issue No. 45, 11 Nov, 2017
Tushaar Shah, Neha Durga, Gyan Prakash Rai, Shilp Verma, Rahul Rathod

Anand, the Gujarat town that gave India its dairy cooperative movement, has now spawned in Dhundi village the world’s first solar cooperative that produces Solar Power as a Remunerative Crop. When compared to other models promoting solar irrigation in the country, the SPaRC model, which has successfully completed one year in Dhundi, offers multiple benefits across-the-board: it will control groundwater overexploitation, reduce the subsidy burden on DISCOMs, curtail carbon footprint of agriculture, and help double farmer incomes

Vasudhara Adivasi Dairy Cooperative

Vol. 50, Issue No. 7, 14 Feb, 2015
Amit Patel, Shilp Verma, Tushaar Shah, Yashree Mehta

India's White Revolution has made the country the largest milk producer in the world, but this has bypassed the Adivasi heartland of the central Indian plateau. The Vasudhara cooperative, which has organised 1,20,000 mostly Adivasi women from Valsad, Navsari, Dang and Dhule districts into a Rs 1,000-crore dairy business, provides a model for India's second White Revolution designed to empower Adivasi women.

Karnataka's Smart, New Solar Pump Policy for Irrigation

Vol. 49, Issue No. 48, 29 Nov, 2014
Neha Durga, Shilp Verma, Tushaar Shah

The runaway growth in states of subsidised solar pumps, which provide quality energy at near-zero marginal cost, can pose a bigger threat of groundwater over-exploitation than free power has done so far. The best way to meet this threat is by paying farmers to "grow" solar power as a remunerative cash crop. Doing so can reduce pressure on aquifers, cut the subsidy burden on electricity companies, reduce the carbon footprint of agriculture and improve farm incomes. Karnataka's new Surya Raitha policy has ken a small step in this direction.

Co-Management of Electricity and Groundwater: An Assessment of Gujarat's Jyotirgram Scheme

Vol. 43, Issue No. 07, 16 Feb, 2008
Shilp Verma, Tushaar Shah

In September 2003, the government of Gujarat introduced the Jyotirgram Yojana to improve rural power supply. Two major changes have since taken place: (a) villages get 24 hour three-phase power supply for domestic use, in schools, hospitals, village industries, all subject to metered tariff; and (b) tubewell owners get eight hours/day of power but of full voltage and on a pre-announced schedule. It has, however, offered a mixed bag to medium and large farmers and hit marginal farmers and the landless. This article offers an assessment of the impact of Jyotirgram, and argues that with some refinements it presents a model that other states can follow with profit.

Improved Water Control as Strategy for Enhancing Tribal Livelihoods

Vol. 39, Issue No. 31, 31 Jul, 2004
Sanjiv J Phansalkar, Shilp Verma

Synthesising the lessons of a two year collaborative research programme by researchers and NGOs, this paper suggests that improved water control strategies, designed after taking contextual factors of resource conditions and socio-ecology into consideration, have a high potential for redressing the livelihood problems of India's most neglected people besides also leading to sustained and salutary impacts on wider human development indicators for this region. While other development interventions are also important and necessary, public investments in assuring improved irrigation water control can act to kick-start the tribal economy in the region.

Back to Top

EPW

Term & Policy

Circulation

Advertisement

Connect with us