Rooftop solar program to enable 1 crore households to get 300 units free power/month

One crore household will be enabled to get up to 300 units free electricity every month through rooftop solar program under the Pradhan Mantri Suryodaya Yojana, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said in the Budget speech on Thursday

“The decision to provide free electricity via rooftop solarization is a double win - it reduces the environmental impact and eases the financial burden on households,” said Sandiip Bhammer, Founder and Co-Managing Partner, Green Frontier Capital.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi had on January 22 announced the program stating it would reduce the electricity bill of the poor and middle class and make the country self-reliant in the energy sector.


The program aims to provide electricity to low and middle-income individuals through solar rooftop installations, along with offering additional income for surplus electricity generation.

The government’s objective is to achieve 40 GW of rooftop solar capacity, as stated back in 2019, when the government had launched rooftop solar program Phase-II.

However, India has an installed rooftop solar capacity of 11 GW, of which only 2.7 GW is in the residential sector, according to a report by the Council on Energy, Environment and Water (CEEW) in November.

Residential consumers currently install rooftop solar panels from any one of the vendors registered by the distribution company of their locality.

The installation drive has so far not been able to garner the expected response from the residential segment consumers mainly because of the cost and the implementation process.

High capital cost and limited awareness about the rooftop solar systems are leading barriers across states impacting consumers’ willingness to buy, the CEEW report said.