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• It was found during the study that for model 1 (1.5hp) the repayment of loan was above ten years.
It means farmer takes >10 years to repay the loan. So model was not bankable. Reason behind
non-bankability of model 1 is that in study area the farmers only grow food grains and do not give
preference to grow vegetables.
• Solar pumping has great potential in every district of Himachal Pradesh. It uses clean energy for
lifting water and increasing productivity without any harmful effect on the environment.
• Growing of only food grains does not give very high incremental income. Therefore, in order to
make the investment bankable, the farmer need to diversify the farming to high value crops like
vegetables, floriculture, fruit etc
C. Solar Drier:
• It was found during the study that 15 units of solar drier were established in high insolation area
where solar driers receive maximum radiation in both summer and winter seasons.
• Solar drier was feasible in any geographical region because in summer average sun hours/ day were
12hrs and in winter average sun hours/day were 8 hours. It plays important role in remote area to
improve the income of farmer.
• In sun dried products the farmer do not earn high margin for the products because in open sun dried
many factors affect the quality of product like dust, fungus, overheating, and moisture etc.
• It was revealed in the study that benefits or loss in solar drier depends upon market value of
products and number of products dried. More the number of products dried, maximum benefits will
be earned. Single product can give more benefit to farmer only if market value of product is high like
pomegranates, kishmish, apple chips, garlic etc. In study area found that 233% increase in cost of
pomegranates after dried in solar drier. Because the market value of product was high.
• Products dried under solar drier have earned higher value in the study area. Farmer dried many
products like red chilli, peas, turmeric and pomegranates etc. Total cost of Sun dried product was
Rs.19050, while in open sun dried cost of same products was Rs.8150. This shows that there was a
total increase of 57% in income of farmer.
• Model for Pomegranates found that total IRR resulting from product was 78% and benefit cost ratio
was 2.37. It means model was viable even for a single product dried.
• After calculating bankability for pomegranates it found that the repayment period was 5 year. To
repay the loan farmer will take five year. This shows that this model was bankable.
• Like pomegranates other models for two and three products were also viable. Total internal rate of
return from two products was 54% and benefit cost ratio was 1.94 and for three product model IRR
was 72% with BCR 2.27. That all shows that model 1, model 2 and model 3 were viable. It can be
easily replicated in any part of state. . .
• Many remote area in Himachal Pradesh like Kinnaur, Lahul Spiti, Chamba, kullu solar drier may
play important role to start own small business of post harvesting processing of products. In these
areas fruit like grapes, apple, apricot, etc. are cultivated in large scale.
