Source : Google photo
Synopsis : All countries are making progress in
varying degrees to make life better for their citizens but India is in a league
of its own when it comes to spectacular advances in technology and
infrastructure development .The blog mentions just a few renewable power
generation and irrigation projects that has made great impact on the lives of
millions of people.
We live in the age of confrontation and continuous
threats to our independence posed by people who want to control us and impose
on us their ideology, their brand of religion, their culture, their food and
their system of the monopolistic exploitation of people to make money.
To achieve this goal, they are prepared to go to war to
destroy us and our way of life that is best suited to us. We now see tension between
many countries that break out in armed conflicts in the Middle East, North and
West of India, in the South China Sea, in the Tigre area of Ethiopia and
numerous other parts of the world because people can not resolve their
differences amicably.
We see millions of people who become internal refugees in
their own countries due to the conflict so they try to leave and seek asylum
and protection in other countries that would have them but often they drown in
the sea so their dream of a new life never becomes a reality.
Others try to leave due to extreme poverty and jobless
situation so they try to reach other countries where they can find employment
and means to sustain themselves. Some are forced to flee their country because
they are in conflict with the majority of the population due to their hard core
religion like in Myanmar so they end up being a burden to the neighboring
countries where they fail to assimilate.
In other countries , people are still hell bent on
destroying their institutions like the electoral process so that they can keep
a dictator in power. So the news channels are full of depressing news everyday
because such negative news gets them viewers so rarely they mention when a
country makes tremendous progress in agriculture, in their industries and
education etc. that dramatically improves the well being of its citizens. News
of political assassination, war, refugees, flood and typhoon destruction,
famine and global terrorism all are flashed onto our TV screen everyday.
So today I would like to tell you about how India is
helping its farmers by bringing irrigation water to their arid land so that
they can plant three crops a year and dramatically increase their income by
selling their surplus food. You can imagine how millions of farmers who are
given this sort of help by the government makes the country not only self
sufficient in food but generates huge surplus that it sells abroad to reduce
the trade deficit.
I lived in Sudan where the mighty Nile river flows
through it and some of its water is channeled to the Gezira plateau to irrigate
crops like cotton, sorghum , corn etc. but if you go west of Khartoum, you will
soon pass through very arid regions of the country where the farmers only
depend on the rain to grow a poor crop now and then. They have been talking of
a canal going west to El Obeid to bring the Nile water there for the farmers
but it has remained only a dream. There are many reasons. One is the shortage
of funds and second is the political will of the government that has other
priorities.
If you visit the abandoned city of Fatehpur Sikri which
is some 40 kms from Agra, you will be told that the city built by Emperor Akbar
in the 15th century at a great cost was abandoned because their source of water
dried up. Akbar could not bring the Yamuna river water to Sikri through a canal
although it is hard for me to understand why. The distance was only 40 kms and
there was no shortage of hydraulic engineers in those days. He could have given
jobs to thousands of people to dig the canal and save his city but he didn’t.
The Romans were master builders and brought water to Rome
and other cities from great distance using aqueducts and viaducts that still
stand today. You will see the wonderful remains of such structures in Spain and
in other parts of their empire and see how well these structures were built
using the technology they had in those days.
Then we come to more recent times and see how the
Israelis brought a system of drip irrigation to the dry and barren land in
their country that turned the land into lush fields of crops, fruit orchards
etc. that are so productive. The flooding of fields to irrigate the crops is a
wasteful way of using water in many countries but Israel does not have a lot of
water so they invented an ingenious system of irrigating their crops using the
drip method to give water to plants at the roots after mixing some fertilizer
to it. This method cuts down the water evaporation from the surface and the
plants suck up every drop of water to grow fast and produce enormous yields.
So I will mention a few such projects in India that have
been completed and the farmers are getting the benefits for the first time.
Such projects are very big in their scale and scope so they cost a lot of money
but any country that invests in the infrastructure projects to benefit its
farmers grows fast. The government of India has developed numerous ways to help
the farmers like building farm to market roads, electricity in every village,
farm loan and subsidies, better choice of markets where they can sell their
produce, farm insurance policy, better minimum price for the crops, direct sale
to buyers to cut out the middle men , better crop varieties and better
technologies .
Note : If the video does not load, just use the link
to see the videos
1. The massive drip irrigation project : The biggest such
project in the world.
Source : U tube video in English
It is the world’s biggest drip irrigation project called
Ramthal that took many years to complete and brings water to the Bagalcot
district in Karnataka state to irrigate 24000 hectares ( one sq. km = 100 ha. )
or over 240 sq kms area that is huge. It is a very sophisticated system based
on the Israeli model but on a scale that boggles the mind. The video is with
English subtitles so you will understand the technicality of it easily.
2. Kaleshwaram lift irrigation project,the biggest
in the world:
This project has been completed in the Telangana state at the cost of USD 13
billion todate. The world’s largest Kaleshwaram Lift Irrigation Project (KLIP)
is a multi-purpose irrigation project on the Godavari River in Kaleshwaram of
Telangana. This Kaleshwaram project will provide water for drinking and
irrigation purposes to about 45 lakh acres in 20 of the 31 districts in
Telangana, and willl provide drinking water to big cities like Hyderabad and
Secunderabad. It computes to 18210 sq. km area which is huge. The project is
already providing water to many farmers although it is still in its final phase of construction
that will take a few more years.
3. A mega solar park project in Tamilnadu in India
Source : U tube video in English
https://youtu.be/LT3hr6X1Viw
This solar power plant in South India state of Tamilnadu
has been completed and running. It covers an area of 2500 acres in Madurai
generating 640 Mega watts of power in a single location.
4. World’s largest solar park in Karnataka state of India
Source : U tube video in English
https://youtu.be/NZTLk1n5Fuc
This solar park covers an area of 13000 acres of land and
generates 2050 MegaWatts of power that is over 3.5 times the output of the
Tamilnadu project. India wants to achieve its goal of over 100000 Mega watts in
the next few years to generate over 30 % of its total annual need from solar
energy alone.
There are numerous projects under construction to
generate power from nuclear, wind , geothermal and hydroelectric plants in the
country so gradually India will increase the power production from renewable
energy sources and less from coal fired plants in the future.
I hope you will learn a great deal about these mega
projects that generate electricity from solar power plants and appreciate
India’s great effort and achievements.
Note : My blogs are also available in French, Spanish, German and Japanese languages at the following links as well as my biography. My blogs can be shared by anyone anytime in any social media.
La biografía de anil en español.
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