Solar Water Pumps Bring Water To Punjab Villages

By Saur News Bureau/ Updated On Wed, Feb 17th, 2021

Under its ‘Har Ghar Paani, har Ghar Safai’ mission, the Punjab water supply and sanitation department has set up the first of many planned solar-based water supply projects at Jagrawan-Muradpur and Talwara villages of the Jalandhar district. The projects involve installation of 150-metre deep tube-wells, with tanks of capacity 25,000 litres that use electricity produced from solar to provide piped water supply to households in these villages.

These solar-based pilot projects were commissioned at a cost of Rs 67.71 lakh.

The logic of these projects was both to free up funds otherwise used to pay for electricity for other development works, besides streamlining the access to drinking water with a better-planned approach.

Much like the game plan for solar water pumps in farms under the PM KUSUM scheme, where the government hopes that the ne time effort will yield long term savings in polluting fuel costs, or free power, besides bringing to the grid any excess solar power at a lower cost.

With the successful commissioning of these projects, 141 households of Jagrawan and Muradpur and 102 households of Talwara village have benefited.

Marrying solar power to the requirements of the planned water projects is considered a huge opportunity by many in the sector, as funds have already been allocated for the water projects to be completed by 2024. With a focus on tapping into local ecosystems, using solar power so close to the source would also take out the complications of transmission grid quality, and higher efficiencies.

While the Punjab example here is just the simplest use of using solar-powered pumps, more detailed plans could even see these installations power local utilities from streetlights and more.

Village Panchayats would benefit from new facilities, without the additional recurring cost of electricity.