Life is ‘better after solar’: The use of sunlight gives freedom and benefits to the salt farmers of India

Under a decorating afternoon sun, Devabhai Savadia slowly rubs the salt pan that has been in his family for generations. It is cool around him, a soft, clink sound of dishes except for his salt broom and washed nearby.

This is a new development. For years, loud, sputtering diesel machines have been running continuously, which have been running continuously to remove salty salty underground, which spread to farmers to evaporate and produce salt crystals.

Now, it is a solar panel that dots huge dry desert, gives strength to pumps.

The switch has dramatically changed the life of Savadia to use several hours of sunshine in Kutch district of western Gujarat state of India.

The 59 -year -old farmer told CBC News, “We finally make a profit due to solar, after solar,” 59 -year -old farmer told CBC News.

“Earlier (us) solar panels, hardly enough money to eat and not one rupee more.”

The farmer of nomadic salt, called Agaris, migrates from his villages in the state of Gujarat, as soon as the monsoon rains and camps in Ricky Tarplin tents near salt marsh for the eight -month crop season.

They are not the owners of the marsh that they have been working for generations to make the world’s third largest salt productive India salt.

It is the government land that they return every year to help in making India’s inland, which is mostly table salt.

Until they were helped to buy a solar panel and install them next to their salt pan, farmers start in debt every season, forced to borrow heavy from salt traders, so that they can buy 15 or so many barrels of diesel that their old pumps were required.

Borrowing costs can go to a season of 300,000 Indian rupees, or about $ 5,000 CDN, one season.

“We will return with a bag filled with salt, but were left with nothing – no enough money,” Saradia said.

Problems with diesel

He said that diesel continuously smoke and toxins made him “sick and created a lot of problems,” he said. Their hands were also often black in color due to fidal with machines.

Among the two solar panels of Savadia, now there is a prominent place next to the family’s tent, where his young grandchildren are playing Kushti. There is still a diesel pump that is only used as a backup at night or when it is a cloud.

“It’s a relief for us that the smoke has stopped,” said Saradia’s wife, Jasiben Savadia.

“Life has become better after solar.”

The family was able to build a new house in their village and pay for their son’s wedding because due to many thousands of dollars they are now saving every year without the need to buy diesel fuel.

Jasiben Savadia said, “There is freedom because” we do not have to borrow money from anyone else. ,

Heavy government subsidy

Most of the about 5,000 Agia families working in the salt desert have taken advantage of a large subsidy from both the state of Gujarat and federal governments, covering 80 percent of the cost of a solar panel.

This initiative fits neatly in India’s push to invest heavy in renewable energy, while slowly trying to reduce the country of its dependence on coal.

The South Asian country still depends on coal – it produces more than 70 percent of the dirty – 70 percent of the fossil fuel.

The authorities are also in a hurry to argue that India is within its rights, as a developing country, which authorizes opening coal -powered power plants, even prioritizes clean energy.

Nevertheless, according to the press bureau of the government, India’s solar energy sector is growing quickly, with the installed solar capacity, now more than 108 GW. It was sitting on less than three gigawatt a decade ago.

‘Output is very good’

The country also focuses on the construction of solar farms on a large scale, groups of millions of panels in rows and columns that produce clean power.

“With solar, the expenses of the farmers are close to zero and the output is very good,” Bharatbhai Somera said, who has voluntarily worked with the local NGO Agiyariya Heit-Raksha Manch for years, which advocates the salt farming community.

He grew up in a Agaria family in a salt desert and saw his father working for a low profit.

The solar panels in the small night of the kach, and the money they now save, allow farmers to expand the harvesting season, which means that the salt they produce is better quality because it has longer to crystallize.

Community bonds have also been repaired due to going into renewable energy.

Somera said, “With diesel, farmers had to keep an eye on the machine for 24 consecutive hours.” If there was any family work, agariyas would have to leave it.

“Now solar works on its own and they can go to see their family and participate in weddings.”

Subsidy effect remains

But even though the benefits were clear to Somera and his colleagues, he said that it made many demonstrations and a lot of assurances that “let the idea go into the sink” with government officials before approving the subsidy.

It lasted for five years, but subsidy is not being offered, even though there was a large number of effects.

“The entire loop of exploitation and poverty that has been going on for generations, (Agris) can break it in two to three years,” Pankati Jog said, who is a program director with the Agia Heat-Raksha Manch.

He said that most families now have at least one solar panel, but with subsidy, a system of assistance for insurance, if the panel breaks or deteriorates, will help most farmers.

Life in isolation

Life in the huge dry desert surrounded by salt swamp is still very difficult, with a rapid sense of isolation.

There are no medical clinics or family doctors and children go to school in abandoned buses, their motors are removed, the sunburn is parked randomly in the middle of landscape.

In a spring afternoon, a dozen children packed in one of the buses, sitting at the small desk in a changed interior, led a vocabulary check waiting for the teacher to arrive with many older children.

There is a desire desire for more opportunities among many salt farmers, and solar is providing some answers.

Jerbhai Dhamecha, 34, has three daughters and a son, all in primary and middle school.

As he raised his big salt pan, collecting salt crystals on one side, he listed what his solar panels have brought to the family – a new brick house, a new tractor, a motorcycle in his village.

‘My grandfather had nothing’

Before solar energy changed everything, “We could not even buy bicycles,” 34, 34.

“My grandfather had nothing. They used to carry water and used to bring it (in the fields).”

He is now earning about 60 percent more profit, weighing it without a cost of diesel.

A fellow Agariya said with a similar idea, as he eagerly displayed how his solar energy -powered water pump worked.

58 -year -old Kalubhai Sarela returns to compare an additional son’s panels or to help her father, to help the family to earn a completely new salary.

“Our grandfather felt nothing but sadness in this desert. His life was a struggle,” Sarela said.

“But now, after solar energy, here is pure bliss.”