What implementation bottlenecks does residential rooftop solar face in India? Suggest measures to make the scheme more inclusive for renters and urban poor households.

The PM Surya Ghar: Muft Bijli Yojana (2024) aims to put rooftop solar on 1 crore households by FY 2026-27. It has an outlay of ₹75,021 crore and offers up to 300 free units a month [1]. Demand is no longer the problem. The binding limits are now delivery and equity, because the scheme depends on DISCOM approvals and on households that own their roofs.

Implementation Bottlenecks

• Applications not turning into installations: Andhra Pradesh had 9.13 lakh applications but only 2.31 lakh installations by July 2026 [2]. Nationally, over 1 crore registrations had produced about 33 lakh installations by May 2026 [7].
• DISCOMs lose from approving: Net metering is a consumer right under the Electricity (Rights of Consumers) Rules, 2020 [5]. But it cuts DISCOM sales to their best-paying customers, so the body that inspects and connects systems has a reason to delay.
• Spending bunched at the end: Only ₹27,343.9 crore of central subsidy (CFA), about 36% of the outlay, had been released by July 2026 [4][1]. That leaves a heavy payout for the final months.
• Uneven spread across states: The scheme has no state-wise allocation [3]. Poorer states with weak DISCOMs can fall behind without anyone noticing.
• Grid and quality strain: Reverse power flow, transformer upgrades, smart-meter gaps and small installers of uneven quality all limit how fast it can scale.

Measures for Renters and the Urban Poor

• Zero-upfront models: Scale up MNRE's RESCO and Utility-Led Aggregation models, backed by a ₹100 crore payment-security corpus [6]. Make aggregation the default for low-income clusters, so DISCOMs become partners rather than gatekeepers.
• Shared and virtual net metering: Eligibility now requires a suitable roof and the applicant's own grid connection [3]. Yet 40.45 lakh systems already serve 48.8 lakh households [4], which shows systems can be shared. Extend this to housing societies, slum-rehabilitation blocks and rented buildings, with credits split across individual bills.
• Fair cost-sharing: State regulators should fix how DISCOMs are compensated in advance. That would speed approvals without shifting costs onto households that have no panels.
• Transparent targeting: Publish installations by income group and delivery model, and set state-wise inclusion targets.
• Link with public housing: Install solar by default on government-built urban housing blocks.

In short, the scheme's constraint has moved from demand to delivery. Aligning DISCOM incentives and mainstreaming shared, zero-upfront models can extend "Muft Bijli" to households without their own roofs. This would advance SDG 7 (affordable, clean energy) and India's Panchamrit climate goals.