Staff Reporter:
Prime Minister Tarique Rahman yesterday said the government plans to replace diesel-powered irrigation pumps with solar-powered ones for farmers across the country within the next five years.
“Wherever water pumps are currently operated by diesel, we will gradually convert all of them to solar power within the next five years, InshaAllah,” he said while replying to a supplementary question from Meherpur-1 lawmaker Md. Tajuddin Khan during the question-answer session in parliament yesterday.
Replying to the question whether the government had any plan to provide farmers with solar power free of cost instead of diesel-run engines for irrigation, the Prime Minister also outlined the gov-ernment’s plans to expand renewable energy, solar power plants and other alternative energy sources.
He said the government, considering the country’s growing electricity demand, has identified re-newable energy as a priority sector to reduce dependence on imported fuels.
“A National Renewable Energy Development Strategy for 2026-2030 has already been formulated. Under the strategy, targets have been set to generate at least 20 percent of total electricity from renewable sources by 2030 and at least 30 percent by 2040,” he said.
Considering the potential and feasibility, he said, targets have been set to generate 5,500 mega-watts from rooftop solar power, 4,500MW from ground-mounted solar power and 450-550MW from other technologies, including wind, waste-to-energy, hydropower, floating solar and agrivoltaics, by 2030.
The Prime Minister said the government has already provided conditional exemption from customs duty, regulatory duty, supplementary duty, advance tax and the additional 2 percent advance in-come tax on essential products required for solar power installations, including solar panels, in-verters, batteries and structures.
“Most recently, on September 1, the maximum cost of rooftop solar power generation, including batteries, was set at Tk 8 per unit,” he said.
