Economics of solar powered pumping system in major crops of Rajasthan: a comparative study
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Date
2019-02
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College of Post Graduate Studies in Agricultural Sciences, CAU-Imphal, Umiam
Abstract
Under different types of irrigation systems viz., diesel, electric and solar irrigation system kinnow cultivation has been practiced as a major fruit crop by the farmers. Many of the inputs are being used in kinnow production but irrigation plays an important role. Energy requirement for pumping the water is through diesel and electric irrigation system but continuous, sustainable, portable and uninterrupted source of irrigation remains a greater challenge to the farmer due to sky touching fuel prices on one hand and in the clean environment saga of the other. The solar powered irrigation is economically viable and promising option to irrigate the crops. Hence, this investigation was undertaken to work out the cost and returns, resource use efficiency, economic feasibility of kinnow cultivation under diesel, electric and solar irrigation systems and examined the constraints in adoption of solar powered irrigation. A total of eight villages was selected, four each from the Sri-Ganganagar and Bikaner districts of the state Rajasthan as highest number of solar units are installed to irrigate the kinnow orchard. A total of 240 kinnow growers were selected and categorized into three groups viz., solar irrigation system (160 farmers), diesel irrigation system (40 farmers) and electric irrigation system (40 farmers). Primary data was collected for the crop year 2016-17 on well structured and pre- tested through individual interview schedule method. Cost concepts, Cobb-Douglas production function, Life Cycle Cost (LCC) analysis, NPV, PB, BCR and BEP and Garret’s ranking technique were applied to analyze the household data. It is summarized that the establishment cost of kinnow orchard has been worked out of 362646, 462497, 444323 and 830303 under diesel, electric and solar irrigation systems (with and without subsidy), respectively. The operational cost was found to be increased with the age of the plants. The gross cost has been observed lowest under solar irrigation system (with subsidy) compare to other irrigation systems. The net returns of kinnow cultivation with solar irrigation system (with subsidy) was proved to be more profitable compare to other irrigation systems due to no energy cost of fuel and electricity. The allocative efficiency of kinnow cultivation was revealed that family labour, hired labour and fertilizer were found to be more than one signifying that there was further possibility to increase the use of inputs under solar and diesel irrigation systems. Similarly, family labour, hired labour, machine labour and irrigation were also observed to be underutilized signifying that there is additional possibility to increase the use of inputs in order to give more returns under diesel irrigation system. The LCC of solar system was found to be more economical choice over the diesel and electric irrigation systems. All the economic efficiency indicators of the solar irrigation system have shown higher comparative to two other irrigation systems. The major constraints faced by respondents in adoption of solar system were in-adequate subsidy, high initial investment, non-availability of quality spare parts etc.
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Keywords
Irrigation system, Cost benefit analysis