UNB, Dhaka :
The government has undertaken a programme to replace about 150,000 diesel and conventional electricity-run irrigation pumps with solar-powered ones.
According to the Power and Energy Ministry, at present, the country has a total of about 1.66 million irrigation pumps. Of these, some 266,000 are electrically powered water pumps which consume around 1,300 MW to irrigate 1.7 million hectares of land.
The rest 1.3 million diesel-run pumps, which consume 900,000 tonnes of fuel, are operated to irrigate the additional 3.4 million hectares of land.
In order to keep the momentum in food grain production, the government provides around Tk 24-Tk 26 as subsidy per litre of diesel while the tariff for electricity used in irrigation is also lower than other consumers.
Officials said, the programme has already started in different places of the country under two separate support organizations-
Infrastructure Development Company Limited (IDCOL) and Bangladesh Bank.
Both are using climate change and green funds for the project.
The Power Division officials said the programme will cost about $60 million, out of which $24.5 million is expected as grant support from the Bangladesh Climate Change Resilient Fund (BCCRF).
But since the programme is mainly implemented by the private sector sponsors, they are expected to invest $11.5 million, said a senior official at the Power Division.
He also maentioned that the rest will be credit support from the World Bank and own financing from the government-owned financial institution IDCOL.
Grant and credit support will be channeled through the IDCOL and the irrigation pumps will be installed and operated by non-government organizations (NGOs) and private investors.
The Power Division official informed that the Solar Irrigation Project will enable installation of solar-powered irrigation pumps covering more than 65,000 bighas of land for rice cultivation and will save $3.2 million in foreign exchange every year from displacement of diesel.
Joint Secretary of the Power Division Siddique Zobair, who is dealing with the project, said the capacity of each of the solar irrigation pumps will be about 8 kilowatt peak and they could be able to run 5-8 hours a day to pump about 500,000 litres of water.
However, there might be a system in the pumps so that they could be operated by diesel in case of inclement weather where sunlight is not sufficient for running the solar pumps, he said.
Zobair also informed that so far only 40 solar pumps have been installed under public initiative. But mostly, private investors, NGOs or commercial firms will be involved in the project.
IDCOL will provide both grant and credit support for the programme while Bangladesh Bank will provide loan at lower interest rate of 7-9 percent.
Officials said that, though the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) has keen interest to replace 300,000 pumps in three years, but in the existing situation, it might not be possible to replace more than 150,000 pumps in the next three years.
