Unreliable power
Irrigation power is unreliable and of poor quality, rationed and expensive.
Agrivoltaics · Farmer-owned · Investment-ready
A village can own its power plant and keep farming under it.
Bharat Agvoltaics prepares farmer-owned agrivoltaic village utilities for investment.
The starting point
Problems facing smallholder farmers
Land losing value
The land is a depreciating asset under rising heat, erratic monsoons and falling water tables.
Solar without ownership
Conventional solar leaves the farmer a lessor. The developer owns the asset and the village collects rent.
Farming under solar panels
Agrivoltaics answers all three
Elevated panels over active farmland generate power where it is consumed, and the surplus is exported to the DISCOM.
Their partial shade makes high-value, shade-suited crops such as turmeric and ginger viable where open-field cultivation would fail.
up to 30%
less water lost to evapotranspiration under the partial shade of the panels.
We work on the community ownership model, which remains unproven.
FROM THE FIELD · UTTAR PRADESH
See a unit working over a real farm
Transform Rural India's film from Ghumna Bharu shows elevated panels, solar irrigation and crops growing underneath on a working smallholder plot.
The BaAV role
What we bring
Investment-ready models
Community-owned business models that a funder or lender can assess.
EPC contacts
Builders who can engineer and construct over working farmland.
Intellectual property
Unit designs, crop plans and ownership documents made for smallholder plots.
Scheme DPRs
Project reports for funding under schemes such as PM-KUSUM.
Coordination
One point of contact between farmers, builders, agronomists, the DISCOM and funders.
The unit’s foundations
Four pillars
Farmer
An owner and shareholder of the unit, with farming kept at the centre.
Technology
Raised arrays, pumps, storage and metering designed around the crop.
Partners
EPC firms, agronomists, field organisations and DISCOMs working to one plan.
Finance
Public schemes, philanthropy and private capital layered into one unit.
WHO WE ARE
Entrepreneurial leadership, collaborative governance
Dr. Baskar S. Reddy
Karta · Founder-Director
Executive Director, Global Agri-Entrepreneurship Academy; formerly Executive Director, Syngenta Foundation India.
Two decades across agriculture policy, programme design and field implementation. Led Syngenta Foundation India's smallholder, agri-entrepreneurship and FPO work for over a decade; Founding Director, Agri-Entrepreneur Growth Foundation (with Tata Trusts and IDH).
As Director – Agriculture at FICCI, designed India's first PPP framework for Integrated Agricultural Development. PhD, IARI. Member, NAFPO Steering Committee.
At BaAV: strategic direction and the external face for major partnerships.
Aneesha Bali
Lead · Strategy & Coordination
Development professional with deep experience in India's Farmer Producer Organisation ecosystem. Her work covers policy advocacy, sector research, programme design and donor and partner management.
Has led national sector reporting on FPOs and capacity-building programmes across states.
At BaAV, anchors strategy, partner coordination and pilot roll-out.
Photographs courtesy ICRIER and Transform Rural India.
IN THE NEWS · 14 OCTOBER 2026
Additional Secretary, Cabinet Secretariat visits Ghumna Bharu Agri-PV unit
Press across Uttar Pradesh covered the visit to the women-run 43 kW community plant.
In the news · Ideas Page · 3 August 2026
The Indian Express
Dr. Ashok Gulati and Dr. Baskar Reddy make the case for farmer-owned agri-photovoltaic utilities as captive clean power for AI data centres, with farmers as co-owners of the energy they produce.
Republished by ICRIER; first published in The Indian Express, Ideas Page, 3 August 2026.