Agricultural sector is one of the most crucial contributors to Bangladesh’s economy in terms of employment, food security and GDP growth. There are about 1.24 million diesel run pumps currently operating in Bangladesh using 1 million tons of diesel per year. Given the energy shortage and fluctuating price of petroleum products, solar energy based irrigation pump can be an environment-friendly solution to address these challenges. Solar based irrigation system is an innovative, economic and environment friendly solution for the agrobased economy of Bangladesh. IDCOL Solar program is intended to provide irrigation facilities to off-grid areas and thereby reduce dependency on fossil fuel. Till date, IDCOL has provided financial assistance for installation of 1,523 solar irrigation pumps which are already in operation. Moreover, IDCOL has a target to finance 10,000 solar irrigation pumps by 2030. The World Bank, KfW, GPOBA, JICA, USAID, ADB and Bangladesh Climate Change Resilience Fund (BCCRF) are supporting this initiative.

IDCOL currently follows ‘fee for service’ model where farmers avail irrigation services from the pump by paying an agreed fee. IDCOL is also in the process of exploring ‘ownership model’ where farmers will be the owners of pumps instead of availing irrigation services. Hence, based on the “asset ownership” and “role in pump operations” two different business models have been developed as follows:

The program modality for “fee for service” and “ownership” model is presented in the following diagram: