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New Delhi: The Union government has approved Rs 75,021 crore for a rooftop solar scheme that promises households up to 300 units of free electricity every month.
PM Surya Ghar: Muft Bijli Yojana aims to install rooftop solar systems across one crore households by 2026-27. Union and state subsidies reduce the cost. A designated bank loan is intended to help households that cannot finance the installation independently. Apartment complexes can receive support for systems serving common facilities. A separate utility-led model is intended to cover underserved households.
On paper, then, the scheme contains multiple routes to participation.
But each route begins with conditions that India’s most energy-insecure urban households may not meet. A household needs to be recognised by the formal electricity system. It needs access to a suitable roof or another eligible space. It needs control over how that space is used. And it needs either money or access to formal credit for the remaining cost.
Across three neighbourhoods in Ghaziabad and Noida, these conditions create a ladder of access.
At the top are Vijay Nagar homeowners who possess all four and are receiving government support. In Khora, households have electricity connections but do not necessarily control a roof. In Unnati Vihar, families have roofs and already use solar, but lack the regular electricity connections required to enter the standard household scheme.
The irony is that as the households become more energy-insecure, the scheme becomes harder for them to access.
In Vijay Nagar in Ghaziabad, the scheme’s presence is hard to miss. Advertisements for solar companies cover colony walls. Look up and panels sit on one rooftop after another.
Over a few weeks, The Wire conducted a door-to-door survey of approximately 24 Vijay Nagar households that had installed rooftop solar. Households were identified through visits across selected parts of the neighbourhood and snowball sampling, with residents and local vendors helping locate additional installations.
Rooftops across Vijaynagar in Ghaziabad are covered with solar panels under PM Surya Ghar. Photo: Author provided
The sample is not statistically representative of Vijay Nagar and its findings cannot be extrapolated to the entire area. But within the surveyed group, the pattern was consistent and was independently echoed by the local ward councillor and multiple solar vendors operating in the area.
The households interviewed shared a strikingly consistent profile. All were property owners living in independent houses, largely three storeys or higher. Their homes generally had multiple fans and appliances such as air conditioners, refrigerators and washing machines. None lived in a flat or an apartment building where the rooftop was controlled collectively.
Every household surveyed had installed at least 3 kW of rooftop solar. Under PM Surya Ghar, a household installing a 3 kW system can receive a maximum central subsidy of Rs 78,000. In Uttar Pradesh, the state government under UP Solar Energy Policy 2022 provides another Rs 15,000 per kW, capped at Rs 30,000 per consumer. A household installing a 3 kW system in Ghaziabad can therefore receive up to Rs 1.08 lakh in combined central and state support.
Several households surveyed said they had received both subsidies. The assistance, however, is capped at 3 kW. A household installing a 5 kW system remains eligible for the same maximum amount of Rs 1.08 lakh.
Government support was reaching households in Vijay Nagar. Their electricity bills had also fallen substantially. But it was reaching households that had already crossed several thresholds before the subsidy entered the picture.
They owned their homes. They controlled an independent rooftop. They had regular electricity connections. And they could arrange the money required to install solar.
The survey cannot establish the income profile of all rooftop solar beneficiaries in Vijay Nagar. But it does reveal the property and financial conditions shared by those The Wire found accessing the scheme.
Households do not necessarily need to finance the entire installation independently.
Public-sector banks offer designated loans under PM Surya Ghar. Loans of up to Rs 2 lakh for systems of up to 3 kW are available without collateral, although the solar equipment is hypothecated to the bank. Interest rates advertised by individual banks, however, vary and may also depend on a borrower’s credit profile.
Although these loans are described as collateral-free, the scheme guidelines do not contain a government credit guarantee for individual household borrowers. None of the approximately 24 solar adopters interviewed in Vijay Nagar had used a bank loan to install their systems.
The Wire also spoke to four solar vendors operating in Ghaziabad, particularly Vijay Nagar. None said they had encountered customers financing their rooftop systems through the designated bank loan.
The local ward councillor of Vijaynagar similarly observed that solar adoption in the area was concentrated among households financially capable of making the investment.
In Unnati Vihar, homes lack proper solar installation, but residents use the panels in ways they have learned themselves. Everyone here has become an expert. Photo: Author provided
PM Surya Ghar is not formally restricted to independent houses.
Group Housing Societies and Resident Welfare Associations can receive central assistance of Rs 18,000 per kW for rooftop solar serving common facilities, including electric-vehicle charging. Support is available up to 500 kW, subject to a limit calculated at 3 kW for each house in the complex.
But this route does not operate like the individual household model.
In an apartment complex, the terrace is shared and its use generally requires a collective decision. The society must determine how the installation will be financed, where the panels will be placed, how the electricity will be used and how the resulting savings will be distributed.
A system powering lifts, lighting and other common facilities also does not automatically provide every flat with the same direct reduction in its domestic electricity bill that an individual rooftop system may provide to a homeowner.
None of the approximately 24 beneficiaries covered by the Vijay Nagar survey lived in an RWA-managed apartment building. The four solar vendors interviewed for this story also said they had not handled an installation under the scheme for an RWA or group housing society in the area.
Also read: Why the Modi Government’s Track Record on Solar Energy Needs a Closer Look
In Vijay Nagar, the beneficiaries interviewed had crossed every major entry barrier. They owned their homes, controlled their roofs, possessed regular electricity connections and could install solar without taking the designated bank loan.
Travel a few kilometres away and households begin falling off this ladder one condition at a time. In Khora Colony, Sunita lives with her family in a one-room home. The household has an electricity connection and owns a cooler. Rising electricity and energy costs matter enormously to them.
What the family does not have is a terrace of its own. “The Iran war has shot up our LPG cylinder costs, and this summer was unbearable for us,” she said. “If there is an aspect of solar, then we cannot dream of having it. We don’t have a terrace.”
PM Surya Ghar’s guidelines make this physical requirement clear. To receive central financial assistance, a residential rooftop solar plant must be linked to a residential electricity connection and installed on an eligible roof, terrace, balcony or elevated structure.
Sunita has the electricity connection. But she does not control the physical space required to generate solar power through the standard household route.
For families such as hers, exclusion from rooftop solar is not simply exclusion from another government incentive. They live in small homes where summer heat is difficult to escape. They own a fan or cooler, but using it for longer increases an electricity bill that must be balanced against cooking LPG, food and other essential expenses.
These are households for whom cheaper electricity could offer the greatest relief during extreme heat. But the same housing conditions that make them more vulnerable, including small homes, crowded construction and the absence of a private terrace, make the standard rooftop model harder to access.
The Union government recognises that the standard individual-household model cannot reach everyone.
Under a separate Utility-Led Aggregation model, DISCOMs can aggregate households into larger groups. Instead of each family financing and arranging its own installation, the utility or an appointed entity can install and manage the systems.
The model is intended to cover underserved households, including beneficiaries from PMAY and households belonging to BPL and SC/ST categories.
The government says around 1.6 lakh beneficiaries have been covered through this route.
But according to what The Wire observed in Khora Colony, the model is not reaching informal urban settlements. We reached out to UPNEDA for a comment on on whether the aggregation model is operational in Ghaziabad and Noida, how many households it has covered and whether households without regular connections can participate. The story will be updated when we receive a response.
Even this alternative depends on a household or settlement being recognised and reached by the formal electricity system.
A few kilometres away, in Noida, are families for whom that recognition is itself the problem. They have roofs. Some already have solar panels. What they do not have is a regular electricity connection.
In Unnati Vihar in Noida, around 500 households have been living without regular electricity connections.
Residents say many families have lived here for years. But because the settlement is treated as an informal colony, they have struggled to obtain grid connections.
In Unnati Vihar, families buy solar because there is no regular electricity supply, or bill, to reduce in the first place. Mohammad Alam, 45, is a carpenter and lives with a family of 12. His household relies on a small private solar system, but the electricity it generates is limited.
Nearby lives Babbu, 40, who sells balloons for a living. His family spent around Rs 45,000 on solar. At home, even a fan is among the basic appliances this limited supply must support.
A family of four in Unnati Vihar, displaced after the demolition of their previous home, now relies entirely on a solar panel for electricity. Photo: Author provided
These families already understand the value of solar. But going solar has not meant receiving free electricity. It has meant spending privately to assemble enough electricity to get through the day.
And then there is Sharifa, who is paying Rs 2,000 every month for a solar panel that no longer works. Sharifa, 38, lives with six members of her family. Her house has been without a regular electricity connection for years. With no grid supply available, she bought a private solar system for approximately Rs 40,000.
She could not afford to pay the amount upfront, so she bought it in instalments. She is still paying Rs 2,000 every month. Then a storm damaged the panel. The electricity stopped. The instalments did not.
Her 13-year-old son is in Class 5. The family’s limited electricity supply determines when they can use lights and fans and when and how he can study.
Sharifa put the contradiction more simply. “People who commit crimes and go to jail are also kept under a fan by the government,” she said. “But people like us don’t even have electricity in our homes.”
Sharifa could afford solar only through private instalments. But she cannot access the subsidised system through the standard household route because it sits behind a condition her family cannot fulfil: a regular residential electricity connection.
Her exclusion is not caused by a lack of interest in solar. She has already bought it. Nor is it caused by an unwillingness to pay. She continues paying every month even after the panel stopped functioning. What places her outside PM Surya Ghar is that the state does not formally provide electricity to the settlement in which she lives.
Other families have spent far more.
Sheetla’s household has four solar panels that she says cost around Rs 2 lakh. They can power lights, fans, a water pump and a washing machine.
But owning an appliance and having enough electricity to use it whenever it is needed are two different things.
The washing machine runs roughly twice a week, when there is sufficient sunlight. During the monsoon and winter, solar generation falls. The family then turns to a private generator, adding another expense.
There are around 500 households here. Many have roofs. Many are already spending their own money on solar. But without regular grid connections, they cannot access the standard PM Surya Ghar subsidy.
“We keep asking for electricity,” one resident said. “But then the government says we are living here illegally.”
Rekha was unable to pump water all day in Unnati Vihar as cloudy weather left the solar panel without enough power. Photo: Author provided
These are three different solar economies operating within the same region.
In Vijay Nagar, homeowners with regular electricity connections and independent rooftops install systems that reduce their monthly bills. Central and Uttar Pradesh government subsidies together provide as much as Rs 1.08 lakh. The beneficiaries interviewed could arrange the installation without taking a bank loan.
In Khora, households such as Sunita’s have electricity connections and are vulnerable to rising energy costs. But without control over a suitable roof, they cannot enter through the same route.
In Unnati Vihar, families face the deepest electricity deprivation of the three. They lack regular grid connections and spend Rs 40,000, Rs 45,000 and sometimes Rs 2 lakh on private solar systems simply to operate fans, bulbs and pumps.
Households with less secure housing fell out at successive stages. Some had electricity connections but no roof they could use. Others had roofs and were already paying privately for solar, but lacked the formal grid connection required to claim government support.
The result is a paradox.
The households facing the deepest energy deprivation may have the most to gain from affordable solar. But they are also the least likely to possess the property, infrastructure and formal recognition required to enter the scheme.
India can count how many rooftops receive panels and how many consumers record a zero bill. What it does not yet publicly count is how many households were unable to apply because they lacked a recognised electricity connection, control over a roof or access to formal housing in the first place.
That is the number an inclusive energy transition would also need to measure.
This story was supported by the Earth Journalism Network.
Shubhangi Derhgawen and Bindu Gurjar are independent journalists.
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