PM Surya Ghar-Solar Scheme Garners Over 10 Million Registrations As FOMO Takes Hold

FOMO, or the Fear of Missing Out, has finally come to Solar, going by the numbers being seen in registrations for the PM-SuryaGhar: Muft Bijli Yojana.

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In a tweet on Saturday, March 16, Prime Minister Modi himself shared the news, urging all those who were keen to register too.

Outstanding news!

In about a month since it was launched, over 1 crore households have already registered themselves for the PM-Surya Ghar: Muft Bijli Yojana.

Registrations have been pouring in from all parts of the nation. Assam, Bihar, Gujarat, Maharashtra, Odisha, Tamil…

— Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) March 16, 2024

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While the registrations will no doubt be heartening news, and possibly a world record for the sheer numbers in this time window, it is already obvious that actual execution remains a challenge.  the scheme's own benchmarks would seem to indicate  progress from application to installation and finally, subsidy payment to the customer in as little as 60 days or less. That is clearly not going to happen, considering he volume of applications and the issues involved, correct or not. Even as the government has pushed hard to remove many layers of approvals, on the ground, reports clearly indicate that discoms even in states with a sizeable solar infrastructure in place like Karnataka, and Andhra Pradesh, are struggling.

For now, Gujarat is the only state where the system is well oiled based on it's stupendous progress in the past two years, and looks set to take full advantage of the scheme going forward. Prime Minister Modi said that over 5 lakh applications have been received from each of Bihar, Bengal, Jharkhand, Assam, Gujarat, Maharashtra, Odisha, Tamil Nadu and Uttar Pradesh. It is safe to predict that progress on the Eastern states, and perhaps even Uttar Pradesh will not be able to keep pace with Gujarat, or even Tamil Nadu, which has been quick to seek 25 lakh connections under the scheme.

Importantly, the FOMO we speak of might be driving many registrations, and now comes the difficult part of residents actually finding if their homes are capable of accomodating solar systems.

For firms in the financing business and installers on the ground, the pipeline indeed looks very promising, but they remain non-committal on actual conversions, short of saying that numbers will indeed follow.

Multiple changes have been made since the original announcement,  with the initial high involvement of PSUs being downplayed now, the possibility of financial institutions appraising customers with far more freedom now for loan eligibility, and more. But manufacturers of DCR compliant equipment are gung ho, as they rush to beef up capacity for the same, with numbers expected to start ramping up as early as April according to them.