How Indian states are scaling residential rooftop solar under PM Surya Ghar: Muft Bijli Yojana — state and district best practices and what reaching one crore solarised homes will require.

Rooftop solar has become an essential pillar of India’s distributed renewable energy strategy. For states, it offers three distinct returns: a route to meeting the non-fungible 4.5 percent distributed renewable energy obligation by 2030, partial relief from the tariff subsidy burden carried by state exchequers and distribution companies (DISCOMs), and immediate bill savings for households.

Residential adoption, however, was slow for over a decade. High up-front costs, limited consumer awareness, fragmented vendor ecosystems, restricted access to finance, and administrative bottlenecks held it back. PM Surya Ghar: Muft Bijli Yojana (PMSG: MBY), launched in February 2024, changed that by combining one of the highest capital subsidies of any Indian rooftop solar programme with a unified national digital platform linking consumers, vendors, DISCOMs, and banks providing low-cost finance.

Growth has been rapid. Residential systems now account for more than 60 percent of the country’s total rooftop capacity, up from under 20 percent in 2020. As of October 2026, over 63 lakh households have been solarised and 19 GW of capacity installed — roughly six times the residential capacity India added in the preceding decade — putting the programme well past the halfway mark towards its goal of one crore solarised homes.

Growth has been unevenly spread. Over 70 percent of installations are concentrated in six states, and just 65 districts (8 percent of India’s districts) account for about half of all installations nationally. This indicates the crucial role that subnational performance plays in the PMSG: MBY programme. This report examines the practices that leading states and districts have implemented across three levers. These are policies and regulations that make rooftop solar attractive and accessible; delivery and governance that convert applications into commissioned capacity; and ecosystem capacity that ensures a household finds a vendor, obtains finance, and receives a working system within a reasonable period.

Solarising one crore households and beyond will require an evolution of the current ecosystem. Reaching low-income households without roof access or credit and apartment residents requires aggregation models (like utility-led aggregation) and the use of innovative deployment models like virtual and group net metering. Financing must broaden beyond public-sector lending. DISCOMs must shift from enabling rooftop solar to actively managing it. And vendors must be held to higher standards of installation quality if the consumer confidence the programme has built is to hold.

This report:

• Maps state and district performance under PMSG: MBY, showing how outcomes vary with geographic granularity and why district-level implementation drives statewide results.
• Documents best practices from leading states across policies and regulations, delivery and governance, and ecosystem capacity — from Uttar Pradesh’s district report cards to Rajasthan’s Solar Didi outreach and Gujarat’s single-window portal.
• Sets out what the next phase demands of consumers, financiers, DISCOMs, and vendors to reach one crore solarised homes, including utility-led aggregation, blended finance, grid readiness, and vendor accountability.

Download the report below: