The Parliamentary Standing Committee on Energy has highlighted the slow pace of installation of rooftop solar projects under the Ministry of New & Renewable Energy’s (MNRE) ambitious PM-Surya Ghar: Muft Bijli Yojana.

However, the committee, which met MNRE representatives on October 15, 2024, appreciated the Ministry’s steps to streamline the process under the PM Surya Ghar scheme.

The panel’s report, which was placed in Parliament on Tuesday, commended MNRE’s efforts in creating a dedicated national portal, easy vendor registration, loan availability for consumers, deemed technical feasibility, time-bound inspection, online grievance redressal tools, etc.

“However, the committee would like to highlight the slow pace of installations, as only around 5 lakh installations have been done out of around 20 lakh applications made on the portal by October 2024. Out of this 5 lakh installations, subsidy disbursal has been done for only around 3 lakh,” it added.

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PM Surya Ghar: Muft Bijli Yojana, which was launched on February 13, 2024, has a total outlay of around ₹75,000 crore. It will generate about one lakh crore units of electricity and a reduction of 72 crore tonnes of CO2 emission.

On progress of the scheme, MNRE Secretary told the panel “Around 1.4 crore registrations have been done in it, 20 lakh people have applied for it, who want to actually do it. The current figure of establishment is 4.8 lakh. Subsidy release has been done for around 2.8 lakh. In between, there was a rainy season, when the momentum became a little less. But, the average capacity is still around three to three and a half thousand, which we can do on a daily basis.”

The Secretary expressed hope that the Ministry will easily be able to cross the target of about 12 lakh households this year (FY25).

“As the number of this scheme increases, its growth will also increase at the same pace. Four-five months ago, there were about three and a half thousand connections, which has also increased to around nine thousand,” he added.

MNRE projected a budgetary requirement for FY25 of ₹12,001.70 crore and ₹21,230 crore has been allocated, which is an increase of about 170 per cent against Revised Estimates of FY24.

About 87 per cent budget of the Ministry is allocated for only one component—solar energy. Under this, about 72 per cent (₹13,175.33 crore) is for implementation of PM Surya Ghar: Muft Bijli Yojana, the panel said.

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“The committee feel that the Ministry should make concerted efforts to popularise this laudable scheme further, especially highlighting its subsidy component so that large scale consumers are encouraged to adopt it,” it added.

It also recommended that apart from households and government buildings, the Ministry may consider including schools, hospitals, small industries and other institutional buildings within the subsidy component of the scheme.