Farmers and property owners in Jharkhand can now set up solar panels on their land and get paid for supplying electricity to the Government, officials from the Jharkhand Bijli Vitran Limited (JBVNL) and Jharkhand Renewable Energy Development Agency (JREDA) said on Tuesday, claiming that all it would take to earn money by utilizing arid land or additional space at home was an agreement with the electricity department and the will to set up solar panels.

“There is an existing scheme under which people can set up solar panels on their land or terrace and get paid for supplying power to substations and grids,” said a senior official of the JBVNL. “The payment could be as high as Rs 5 to Rs 7 per unit,” he added requesting anonymity.

The scheme comes in accordance with the Centre’s Pradhan Mantri Krishi Urja Suraksha evam Utthan Mahaabhiyan (PM KUSUM) yojana, under which the government is offering to set up solar panels on arid land of farmers and help them earn money by supplying power to the nearest grid or substation.

“We already have an existing scheme for incentivizing power supply through solar panels. The Central scheme is in addition to the existing offers,” said the JBVNL official.

However, despite the government’s push for using renewable energy, the scheme has seen few takers in Jharkhand, JBVNL officials said. Under the PM KUSUM scheme, JREDA has also been providing solar pumps to farmers for saving energy and checking ground water depletion. However, this scheme too has been hit by lapses on the part of the agency roped in by the Centre for providing solar pumps to farmers, said an executive engineer rank official of JREDA.

The scheme of incentivizing supply of solar power is targeted at gradually reducing the dependency on conventional sources of energy and shifting to renewable and sustainable sources of energy, officials said. Jharkhand is, however, not the only state advocating the use of solar energy. The Gujarat government recently launched the Gujarat Solar Power Policy 2021 to ensure the use of clean and renewable energy.

In Jharkhand, the proactive involvement of farmers and land owners in producing renewable energy may take time, sources from JBVNL said. The Centre’s scheme was launched in 2019 and since then no farmer has agreed to set up solar panels on their arid land, they added.

JREDA’s plans for involving farmers and private parties in producing solar energy were marred by the Covid-19 pandemic in year 2020, and officials expect for a better response by farmers this year.