Explained: How solar-powered pumps are changing lives of farmers

Business Standard travelled across four water-deficient districts in Rajasthan and Haryana to take stock of how solar-powered pumps are changing lives. The first of a three-part series

For Jagdish Prasad Yadav, 45, the sun never sets. Only one of three brothers to stick to farming, he works hard to make his 4.5-hectare land productive year-round. A keen learner of new agricultural practices, he is a regular at meetings of farmers.
 
“Let me click a selfie of all of us. I will put it on our farmer WhatsApp group and tell them about your visit,” he exuberantly says while coming out of his polyhouse where he grows hybrid cucumber, often referred to as ‘Chinese kheera’ by city vendors. Two harvests of the salad vegetable from the 0.4-ha