India issues guidelines for $9.6m ‘model solar village’ programme

This aims to establish a solar village per district.

The Ministry of New and Renewable Energy has issued the guidelines for the rolling out of the “Model Solar Village” under PM-Surya Ghar: Muft Bijli Yojana.

In a statement, the ministry said the programme has a total budget of $9.6m (INR800 crore). This will be used to build one model solar village per district across India to promote solar energy adoption and to help communities become self-reliant in meeting their energy needs. 

To qualify, a village must be a revenue village with a population size above 5,000 (or 2,000 for special category states). The selection process involves a competitive mode where villages are assessed on their overall distributed renewable energy capacity installed six months after the declaration of the potential candidate by the District Level Committee.

The winning village in each district, with the highest RE capacity, will receive a central financial assistance grant of $120,000 (INR1 crore). 

The programme will be implemented by the State/UT Renewable Energy Development Agency under the supervision of the District Level Committee, ensuring that selected villages transition effectively to solar-powered communities, serving as models for other villages across the country.

Approved in February, the PM-Surya Ghar: Muft Bijli Yojana aims to increase the share of solar rooftop capacity and empower residential households to generate their own electricity. This has an outlay of $9b (INR75,021 crore) and will be implemented until fiscal year 2026-2027.

Earlier, the Asian Development Bank approved a $240.5m loan to boost the rooftop solar systems in India, helping the country expand energy access and achieve its target of about 50% of cumulative electric power installed capacity from non fossil fuel energy sources by 2030. 

$1 = INR83.94