Letters

Fuel efficiency and

inefficiency in private
tubewell development
Gert Jan Bom
Solartec, PO Box 1130, Papendrecht, the Netherlands
Frank van Steenbergen
Arcadis Euroconsult, PO Box 441, Arnhem, the Netherlands
1. Introduction
In the last two decades there has been a proliferation of
private groundwater irrigation in India. Estimates put the
figure of diesel pumpsets in India at 6.5 million at present.
To this figure another 11 million pumps with electric motors can be added, mainly operating in areas with deep
aquifers. Similar dramatic increases in private groundwater irrigation have taken place in Pakistan and Bangladesh.
This development has been driven by farmers investment, although a range of public subsidies has accelerated
the pace of groundwater exploitation.
The typical configuration in areas with shallow water
tables in India is that of a centrifugal pump operated with
a 2.5-10 horsepower (hp) (1 hp = 0.746 kW) engine. In
some areas diesel pumpsets have been common from the
beginning. In other areas the failing reliability of rural
power supply has encouraged farmers to replace electric
pumps with diesel pumpsets. A striking feature is that
within this broad category each area has its own typical
irrigation tubewell configuration (size of the engine, capacity of the centrifugal pump, type of well), related to
the depth of the water table, prevailing land ownership,
soil condition and local tradition.
This is not to say that the tubewell configurations are
optimal in terms of fuel consumption or water-saving. In
fact, substantial improvements in well technology,
pumpset design and conveyance systems are possible at
modest cost. These improvements are indicative of the
technological vacuum in which private tubewell development has taken place. In this note evidence on fuel efficiency improvements collected from three districts
(Cooch Behar, Jalpaiguri and Darjeeling) in the northern
part of West Bengal state (known as North Bengal) of
India is presented. After explaining improvements in tubewell configuration, the note concludes with exploring
why the inefficiencies have persisted and have not been
self-corrected.
2. Inefficiencies in pump lift irrigation:
pumpsets, wells and conveyance systems in North
Bengal
Groundwater irrigation has only come to North Bengal
recently. For a long time the cultivation of kharif (the
term used in India for the crop using the south-west monsoon, the end-of-summer rainy season) rain-fed paddy on
46

Energy for Sustainable Development

Figure 1. A modified pumpset with drum cooling and priming pump on

the discharge.

monsoon-inundated land dominated the agricultural economy. In the last two decades the cultivation of wheat,
potatoes and vegetables in the dry winter season has
gained considerable popularity. This required the development of groundwater irrigation facilities. A large number of government programmes set the trend, but
increasingly farmers have invested in shallow tubewells
from their own resources. Diesel pumpsets are most common, as elsewhere in the Terai belt [Shah, no date; Tyagi,
1995], the rich groundwater zone bordering the Himalayan foothills, characterized by high recharge and shallow
water tables.
Investigations and field tests were undertaken under the
North Bengal Terai Development Project to review the
efficiency of the prevalent pumpset configurations in the
region. The investigations discovered that substantial improvements were possible in the configuration of diesel
pumpsets, wells and conveyance systems.
2.1. Improved diesel pumpsets
Most shallow tubewells in the region, but also open wells
and ponds, are operated with 5hp diesel pumpsets. During
field surveys it was found that these pumps were generally oversized (only about 1.5 hp is effectively absorbed
by the pump), overcooled (the operating temperature is
generally only 35C instead of 80C) and that there was
excessive friction loss in the suction pipes due to the inl

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Letters

stallation of a poorly designed check valve.

Through a series of experiments on existing diesel
pumpsets, a set of modifications appropriate for North
Bengal was developed [Chakraborty et al., 1997]. It was
found that overcooling because of passing pump water
through the engine jacket was best corrected by fitting
thermosyphon drum-cooling. The drum-cooling increased
the engine operating temperature from a low 35C to a
normal level of 80C. This modification reduced the fuel
consumption of the standard pumpset by 13%. Next, removing the check valve from the suction pipe reduced
the hydraulic friction losses, saving another 18% on the
fuel consumption. Finally, to mitigate the effects of the
engine being oversized, the engine speed was decreased
from 1500 to 1100 rpm. This resulted in a further reduction of the fuel consumption by 20%. Total fuel consumption could in this way be reduced from 1 l/h to 0.5 l/h,
while the discharge of the pumpsets remained unchanged.
The cost of these modifications on shallow tubewell
pumpsets is Rs. (rupees) 350 (US$ 8). During the irrigation season, this cost can be recovered through fuel savings in 70 running hours, with the diesel fuel costing Rs.
10/l.
A better solution in the long run for the North Bengal
region would be to introduce smaller engines instead of
modified 5 hp engines. In the shallow water tables of the
North Bengal Terai, 3.5 hp pumpsets fit the need much
better. Lower power engines have the additional advantage that their weight is much less (90 kg instead of 220
kg). As a result, transport of pumpsets in the field will
be considerably easier. First tests with a 3.5 hp diesel
engine driving a 363 mm pump (the same pump as is
normally driven by the 5 hp engine) have been positive.
Running at 1000 rpm, the discharge was measured to be
12 l/s at 4m water depth and a fuel consumption of 0.4
l/h, or 20% better than the 5 hp engine under the same
conditions. It is expected that optimisation of the pump
(adapting impeller vane angle) for 1000 rpm will further
reduce the fuel consumption to 0.3 l/h, or 30% of its original level.
2.2. Improved well technology
A variety of well filters is in use in North Bengal. Shallow
76 mm tubewells may have 76 mm galvanized iron, brass,
PVC or bamboo filters. The dynamic water levels vary
from 4 to 5m at extraction rates of 7-10 l/s and static
water levels of 2-3m. Measurements showed resistance of
the filter in general to be excessive (3-4m). As a result
about 40% of the total energy is required just for overcoming the filter resistance. Because the well pipes in this
area also serve as the suction pipe for the pump (Figure
3), the dynamic water level is measured in an observation
well at 30 cm distance. For establishing the filter resistance, a vacuum gauge is mounted on the well pipe where
it comes above ground and the difference between the
vacuum gauge reading (corrected for friction loss and velocity head) and the dynamic water level gives the filter
resistance.
The cause of the high filter resistance lies partly in a
faulty design (too small slot size of filter and insufficient
Energy for Sustainable Development

Figure 2. Fuel consumption versus discharge for each modification on a

shallow tubewell pumpset, with static water level at 3m and dynamic water
level at 4.5m.

Figure 3. A typical well configuration in North Bengal with the well pipe
doubling as suction pipe.

total open area) and partly in lack of development of the

well after construction. Most wells are made without a
gravel pack and have very small slot sizes (0.2 mm is
common) to avoid sand entering the well. The total filter
capacity (open area) however is usually insufficient. As
a result the velocity of the water entering the filter is too
high (exceeding the recommended maximum of 3 cm/s),
which propels small particles towards the well. This ultimately clogs the filter. A second reason for the high filter
resistance is the inadequate development of the well after
construction. Cowdung is commonly used both as slurry
as well as to stabilize the borehole during drilling, but
after development the well is not properly flushed and the
cowdung partially blocks the filter slots, thus setting a
process of further clogging in motion. Moreover, no gradation of material around the screens takes place. Ideally
an outer layer of coarse material should evolve. This does
not happen, because the small slot size does not allow
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Figure 4. Preparation of a mosquito net filter of 3.7m length and 76 mm

diameter.
Table 1. Comparison between netting filters and PVC or brass filters
Filter

PVC

Bamboo/netting

Diameter (mm)

76

76

Slot size (mm)

0.2

Filter length (m)

Static water level (m)

7.5

12

2400

1500

Yield with 5hp pump (l/s)

Total cost for 10m depth (Rs.)

the small particles to be pumped away.

Experiments in North Bengal with improved well design (mosquito net filter combined with PVC plain pipes)
plus post-construction development have already resulted
in wells with 70% less filter resistance (from 3m down
to 1m resistance), giving an additional fuel-saving (on top
of what is achieved by improving the pumpset) of about
30%. The cost of improved wells using bamboo filters
with mosquito netting is considerably less than for wells
with modern filters such as slotted PVC or brass.
While this would work for new wells, for existing wells
rehabilitation is an attractive, though still uncertain, option [van Herwijnen and Ray, 1997]. By surging (moving
a piston up and down in the well pipe) and jetting (recirculating well water with a pump and directing a concentrated water jet at the filter inner surface) the well
discharge improves by about 20% (corresponding to 20%
decrease in fuel consumption). The cost of this operation
is Rs. 100. If this is done after modifying the pumpset,
the incremental fuel saving of 20% amounts to a saving
of Rs. 1.10/h. This investment is recovered in 90 running
hours.
Apart from the fuel saving, a second benefit of the well
improvements is that increased discharge will reduce the
steady state losses of the water conveyance channels
(discussed next).
2.3. Improved conveyance
Typically, the water pumped from shallow tubewells
48

Energy for Sustainable Development

(drilled wells) or pump dug wells (91 cm diameter open

wells) is conveyed through makeshift earthen field channels. The water losses in these earthen channels are considerable. Measurements in North Bengal show that,
depending on the quality of the channel, losses can be as
high as 53% per 100m [van Raalten, 1996]. Such high
losses are mainly attributed to overtopping of undersized
earthen channels. Yet even where the earthen channels
have sufficient freeboard, conveyance losses are significant. They come in two categories. First are the steady
state losses that result from the seepage from the porous
earthen channels. In small-scale lift irrigation the flows
are usually 6-15 l/s. At these relatively established earthen
channels they were measured as 6% per 100m of the flow.
The second category are transient or start-up losses that
are related to the wetting of the dry perimeter of the
earthen channel. Each time the irrigation flow is started
it will take time and water before the water starts to flow
in the channel. In small-scale lift irrigation water is usually started frequently, but for short durations. Obviously,
transient losses depend on the duration and number of
flows. Where water flows are started 30 times annually
and last 2.1h each, transient losses have been measured
at 8.4-10% of the flow per 100m. In intermittent groundwater irrigation transient losses are therefore high, much
higher than in a constant flow situation, characteristic for
surface irrigation. The combined transient and steady state
losses are then at least 15% per 100m, but much higher
in the case of undersized channels.
As a remedy, farmers have adopted polyethylene tubes
(leaflet hoses) as a superior alternative means of water
conveyance in various parts of North Bengal. Intriguingly,
areas where the leaflet hoses are widely accepted are
found right next to areas where they are unknown. The
usual length of the polyethylene tubes is 100-300m. They
weigh 15 kg for 100m length and are available for Rs.
7/m. Depending on the intensity of usage the tubes last
1 to 2 years. There is a thriving market for renting polyethylene tubes. Whereas hire charges for a pump set (including fuel) are typically Rs. 30/h in North Bengal, the
rent for a polyethylene pipe is usually Rs. 5/h. There are
significant advantages to using the polyethylene pipes.
Apart from the minimization of steady state and transient
water losses, the pipes allow the irrigation of higher areas
and do not require land, unlike field channels.
Attaching a polyethylene tube to the delivery pipe of
the pumpset (which has a diameter of 63 or 76 mm), however, increases the delivery head and results in a higher
consumption of diesel per unit volume of water lifted.
The attachment of 100m of polyethylene tube of 102 mm
diameter has been measured to require 11% more diesel
for a given quantity of water lifted. This is more than
compensated by a reduction in the hours of pumping, because water losses even in well-prepared channels are
15% per 100m. However, where 76 mm diameter tubes
are used, as is more common in North Bengal, the increase in delivery head is much more and diesel consumption shoots up by 48% for a 100m tube [van Raalten,
1997].
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Apart from the polyethylene tubes a number of new

low-cost open-channel technologies have been tried in
North Bengal. The technology that got the most favorable
response from farmers was the soil cement channel. The
soil cement channel is made of a 1:1:4 mixture of sand,
cement and soil and has a thickness of 25 mm. The cost
per m for a channel carrying 15 l/s is Rs. 50. The advantage over the concrete-lined channels, introduced in a
number of government programs, is the low cost (20% of
the costs of a brick-lined channel) and its adaptability to
skills of village masons.
2.4. Combined improvements
The combined improvements in well, pump and conveyance technology in North Bengal translate into a 70% saving in fuel required for a given volume of water (Table
2). Investigations in other parts of South Asia indicate
that savings of 40% are possible elsewhere too, using a
different, location-specific, package of modifications. In
a study in Gujarat state of India [Patel, 1988] a number
of changes to the electric pumps were introduced, resulting in 20-50% savings. Work by Enercon in Pakistan [Reinemann and Saqib, 1991] indicated that the overall
efficiencies of tubewells are only 30% of what is achievable.
3. Introducing the improvements
The big question then is why, given the scope for significant gains by low-cost modifications, fuel-inefficient
pump lift irrigation persists. There are a number of explanations. The first is that the development of lift irrigation has by and large taken place in a technological
vacuum. Unlike crop husbandry, water management and
well and pump technology choice has never been the subject of systematic agricultural extension, and technology
choices have been made by imitation rather than by informed decisions.
A second explanation for the low fuel-efficiencies is the
fragmented nature of the relevant service industry. At
farmer level a farmer will typically go to different persons
for installing wells and selecting a pumpset, a practice
that does not encourage optimum fits. At the level of
pumpset suppliers, the pumps and engines/ motors are
manufactured by different enterprises, and subsequently
assembled at local workshops, without taking into account
whether the combination of pump and engine is optimal.
Finally, the pumpset manufacturing sector is fragmented
in India and dominated by a large number of mediumsized producers. None of these has the resources to invest
in substantial R&D. Besides, due to the fragmented nature
of the sector (different manufacturers for pumps and engines, assembly by suppliers, sales by local dealers, all
independent from one another) feedback from the ultimate
customers does not reach the manufacturers. Moreover,
even manufacturers who are aware of the possibilities of
fuel savings are hesitant, because none of them dominates
the market. Most of them generally prefer to produce a
product that is indistinguishable from that of the competitors, rather than actively investing in a new type of pump.
A third explanation concerns the well technology and the
Energy for Sustainable Development

Table 2. Combined fuel efficiency improvement in North Bengal

Improvement

Fuel
savings

Remarks

Pumpset modifications

50%

Well technology improvements

30%

Conveyance improvements

15%

Total fuel saving

70%

Comparing 100m of
102 mm polyethylene
tube with established
earthen field channel
with 25% seepage loss
and corrected for
increased friction head.

use of conveyance systems. Here, what is common in one

area is not known in another. One reason seems to be that
the well development sector is artisanal. In each area a
limited number of well-drillers operate, who are sole service providers, accustomed to a certain technology. Among
farmers there is little awareness of well technology
choices. Moreover, water is an essential and critical input
in the irrigation of the dominant rabi (winter) crops in
North Bengal, i.e., vegetables and potatoes, but total water
requirements are not very high. In comparison with fertilizer or pesticides, therefore, water is a far less costly
input. Though investments in better wells, pumpsets and
conveyance systems can be recouped within one irrigation
season, fuel-saving does not have the topmost place on
the farmers agenda.
Clearly, under these circumstances there is no such
thing as a self-correction in private sector service delivery.
It serves as a reminder of the limitations of technology
improvement through the private sector. How then to promote fuel efficiency improvements in private groundwater
irrigation? One avenue that is being tried in the North
Bengal Terai Development Project consists of training of
farmers, mechanics, tubewell-drillers and dealers. This
has a positive result with one out of six farmers adopting
the pumpset modifications after demonstration and several
village mechanics and tubewell-drillers taking an active
interest in developing the pumpset modifications and well
rehabilitation as an additional line of business. The overall
impact of such a local training program is however limited, whereas the training resources required are substantial. What is more important is to convert the entire
tubewell service delivery sector. This is being done
through the dissemination of the improvements, but, more
important, through persuading some of the big tubewell
buyers in the public sector to adopt the changes and thus
set a new standard.
It could be useful if some kind of technological institute
developed appropriate standards for specific fuel consumption expressed in l/m4 (litres of fuel per unit volume
of water per unit total head). This would define in a practical way the combined performance of a diesel engine
and pump. Standards could furthermore be developed for
well filter resistance as a percentage of the dynamic water
level so as to define the well quality.
Acknowledgements
This note is essentially based on field studies implemented by a number of persons, who
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are gratefully acknowledged: P.K. Biswas, Amer Dey, Aris van Herwijnen, Dhananjay Ray,
David van Raalten and P.K. Sen.

Shah, T., (no date). Water Markets in North Bihar: Synthesis of Six Village Studies in Muzaffarpur District, The Policy School Foundation Studies, Anand.

References

Tyagi, B.N., 1995. Requirements for Electric Power for Agriculture in Uttar Pradesh, Centre
for Advanced Development Research, Lucknow.

Chakraborty, K.K., Bom, G.J., and van Raalten, D., 1997. Improved fuel efficiency of diesel
pumpsets in India, to appear in Journal of the Institution of Engineers.

Van Herwijnen, A., and Ray, D., 1997. The Modification of the Shallow Tubewell: the Improvement and Cleaning of the Well, North Bengal Terai Development Project, Jalpaiguri.

Patel, S.M., 1988. Low cost and quick yielding measures for energy consumption in agricultural pumps, Pacific and Asian Journal of Energy, Vol. 2, No. 1, pp. 3-11.

Van Raalten, D., 1996. Crop Water Requirements and Irrigation Efficiencies in North Bengal,
North Bengal Terai Development Project, Jalpaiguri.

Reinemann, D.J., and Saqib, S., 1991. Tubewell audit and retrofit for improved energy
efficiency, TIDE, Vol. 1, No. 4.

Van Raalten, D., 1997. Report on conveyance techniques, North Bengal Terai Development
Project, Jalpaiguri.

Indoor thermal comfort: the

Pakistan study

tures that people find comfortable in different climatic

zones and seasons. During 1995-96, following doubts
about the general applicability of results from so small a
sample, a second survey (transverse) was undertaken using 846 subjects at monthly intervals over a whole year.
The results of the survey confirmed the previous findings.
The aim of the research was to produce guidelines for
providing comfortable indoor temperatures for buildings
in Pakistan. The objective of the surveys was to determine
the temperature found most comfortable (or the temperature found comfortable by the largest number of people)
in each climatic zone in each season and to:
l relate this to outdoor climate;
l suggest a method of setting indoor air temperature
standards for Pakistan;
l make recommendations for future work in the area in
Pakistan; and
l set a methodology for international work in this field.
The surveys showed that there was a definite relationship
between indoor comfort and outdoor conditions. This paper describes two thermal comfort surveys (longitudinal
and transverse) conducted in Pakistan. The variation of
comfort and discomfort with indoor temperatures and that
of comfort temperatures with indoor and outdoor temperatures are analysed.

J. Fergus Nicol and Iftikhar A. Raja

School of Architecture, Oxford Brookes University, Oxford OX3 OBP, United Kingdom
1. Introduction
The existing indoor design temperatures in Pakistan are
based on ASHRAE standards. These are 26C in the cooling seasons and 21C in the heating seasons irrespective
of where in Pakistan the building is to be built [ENERCON, 1990]. The evidence suggests that many air-conditioning systems are designed to provide a constant 22C.
Analysis of field studies of thermal comfort has shown
that indoor comfort temperatures vary with the mean temperature outdoors [Humphreys 1978, 1978a; Auliciem and
deDear, 1986].
Limited energy resources in Pakistan demand the promotion of greater saving in energy and efficient use of
energy. The National Energy Conservation Centre (ENERCON) of Pakistan is responsible for helping to frame
legislation for the government with a view to minimising
energy consumption. In the field of buildings it has produced a Building Energy Code for Pakistan [ENERCON,
1990]. In buildings, an increasingly important fraction of
the energy is used by air-conditioning systems. However,
the energy cost of air-conditioning is affected by indoor
air temperature standards. Realising these facts, ENERCON commissioned the School of Architecture, Oxford
Brookes University, to advise on the setting of appropriate
indoor temperatures in the different climatic regions of
Pakistan. The operational thermal comfort standards are
based on non-flexible ASHRAE standards [ASHRAE,
1981]. On the other hand, the country, having a highly
variable climate from region to region at macro-scale and
within a region at micro-scale, needs variable indoor temperature standards that take into account the outdoor climate.
To work out appropriate new indoor temperature standards for Pakistan, the two surveys were undertaken by a
team from Oxford Brookes University in co-operation
with ENERCON of Pakistan. The first survey was longitudinal, undertaken during 1993-94 in five cities of Pakistan, using 25 subjects for a week in two seasons. The
results showed that there were big variations in tempera50

Energy for Sustainable Development

2. Climatic regions
Pakistan is a country of diverse climate. On the basis of
different schemes a number of climatic regions have been
identified. For example, Khan [1991] divided the country
into 8 zones, Shamshad [1988] presented 11 zones and
Raja [1996] 16 zones. However, on the basis of homogeneity of climatic elements of interest, temperature and precipitation, the country may be divided into 5 major
climatic regions.
The climatic division of the country is given in Table
1 and the boundaries of different regions are marked in
Figure 1. Each region has its own cultural and architectural traditions, reflecting its own particular climate. The
mean monthly average temperatures for a representative
city in each region are given in Table 2.
3. Thermal comfort survey
The aim of the survey was to establish the indoor temperature that the inhabitants of each climatic region of
Pakistan find most comfortable. There are five major climatic regions. One city in each climatic zone was chosen.
These are indicated in Figure 1. The target group for del

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