I get asked about the PM Surya Ghar subsidy almost every day, and most of what people have heard is wrong. Some think the government pays half the bill at the shop. Others think it never arrives at all. Here is exactly how much you get, what you have to do to claim it, and the handful of mistakes that hold applications up for months.
What the scheme actually pays
PM Surya Ghar: Muft Bijli Yojana was launched on 13 February 2024 and runs under the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy. The target is one crore households by FY 2026-27, and the portal currently shows the scheme closing on 31 March 2027.
The subsidy is fixed per kilowatt, and it is worked out in slabs. Straight from the official benefits page:
| System size | Central subsidy |
|---|---|
| 1 kW | ₹30,000 |
| 2 kW | ₹60,000 |
| 3 kW | ₹78,000 |
| 4 kW and above | ₹78,000 (capped) |
The rule behind the table is ₹30,000 per kW for the first 2 kW, then ₹18,000 for the third kW. After 3 kW the subsidy stops growing. A 5 kW system and a 3 kW system both get ₹78,000. That single fact decides a lot of sizing conversations, and I will come back to it.
One thing to be clear about: this is not a discount at the time of purchase. You pay the installer the full amount. The subsidy comes to your bank account afterwards. Anyone offering you a “subsidy already deducted” price is doing something else, and you should ask hard questions about what.
Who can apply
Only residential consumers and Resident Welfare Associations. If your meter is a commercial or industrial connection, this scheme is not for you, and applying will only waste your time.
Beyond that you need three things. A valid domestic electricity connection in your name. A roof you are entitled to build on. And a bank account seeded with your Aadhaar, because that is where the money lands.
You also need an MNRE-empanelled vendor registered on the portal. Not every electrician who fits panels is registered. If your installer is not on the vendor list, your application cannot proceed, no matter how good the workmanship is.
What size system you can claim for
The portal publishes a rough guide based on your monthly consumption:
- 0 to 150 units a month: 1 to 2 kW
- 150 to 300 units a month: 2 to 3 kW
- Above 300 units: above 3 kW
There is a second limit that catches people out. Your system has to sit within your sanctioned load with the DISCOM. If your sanctioned load is 2 kW and you install 4 kW, the net metering application runs into trouble. MNRE issued an advisory in March 2026 specifically telling DISCOMs to check sanctioned load and allowed inverter AC capacity before approving net metering.
If you genuinely need a bigger system, apply to your DISCOM to enhance your sanctioned load first. In our area that is TPNODL, which covers Mayurbhanj, Balasore, Bhadrak, Keonjhar and Jajpur. It is a form and a small fee. It is far cheaper than having a finished system stuck without approval. I go through this in more detail in the post on how to size a rooftop solar system.
Documents to keep ready
- Your latest electricity bill, for the consumer account number
- Aadhaar
- A cancelled cheque or bank passbook page for the account the subsidy goes to
- Proof of roof ownership or a no-objection letter if the roof is shared
- A working mobile number, because the whole portal runs on OTP
Check the name spelling on the electricity bill against the bank account and Aadhaar before you start. A mismatch here is the single most common reason a file sits idle.
Applying on the portal, step by step
The whole thing runs through pmsuryaghar.gov.in. The registration flow published on the portal is:
- Open the portal and choose Consumer Login.
- Enter your mobile number and the captcha, tick the guidelines box, and verify.
- Enter the OTP that arrives by SMS and log in.
- Fill in your profile: name, email, address, state, district, PIN code. Save.
- Choose Apply for Solar Rooftop. Select state, district and your DISCOM, enter your consumer account number, and click Fetch Details.
- Once your details load, continue and submit the application.
After submission you wait for technical approval from the DISCOM. In Odisha, OERC removed the technical feasibility study requirement for systems up to 10 kW from 2 July 2024, so for a normal house this stage is now much quicker than it used to be.
Only after approval should the installation start. I know installers who put panels up first and apply later. Do not let anyone do that on your roof. If the approval comes back different from what was built, the cost of changing it is yours.
Inspection, net meter and the commissioning certificate
Once the system is installed, your vendor submits the installation details and photographs on the portal. Then you apply for a net meter. The DISCOM inspects the installation and fits the net meter.
When the inspection passes, a commissioning certificate is generated on the portal. This document is the trigger for everything that follows. Keep a copy. Nothing about the subsidy moves until it exists.
Odisha allows net metering from 1 kWp up to 500 kWp, or your sanctioned load, so a household system is comfortably inside the range.
When the money actually reaches your account
After the commissioning certificate, you submit your bank account details and a cancelled cheque on the portal. The official position is that the subsidy reaches your bank account within 30 days of that submission.
In practice, across the jobs we have handed over, I tell people to expect roughly 30 to 45 days from the day of inspection. Sometimes it is quicker. If bank verification fails, it takes longer, and the fix is always on the customer’s side, not the portal’s.
One recent change worth knowing. If you took a loan for the system, the subsidy is now credited to the loan account rather than to you, for applications redeeming on or after 14 August 2026. If loan details do not come through within 15 days of inspection approval, the portal lets you submit a savings account instead.
Why applications get rejected
Four reasons cover almost everything I have seen go wrong.
- Panels that are not ALMM listed. Subsidised systems have to use approved modules that meet the domestic content requirement. A cheap imported panel can disqualify the whole claim after the money is already spent.
- Bank account not Aadhaar seeded. The transfer simply fails. Your bank fixes this, not the portal, and it can take a couple of weeks.
- System larger than the sanctioned load. Net metering approval stalls, and without it there is no commissioning certificate.
- Name and detail mismatches. The electricity bill, the Aadhaar and the bank account have to agree.
None of these are hard to avoid. All of them are painful to fix afterwards.
Is there an Odisha state subsidy on top?
You will find news reports saying Odisha households can get combined central and state assistance of up to ₹1.38 lakh on a 3 kWp system. I am not going to print that as a fact, because I could not confirm it on the PM Surya Ghar portal or on the OREDA website, and I am not willing to build your budget on a number I cannot source officially.
So plan your money around the central subsidy: ₹78,000 on a 3 kW system. Then log in to the portal with your own consumer number and check whether any state scheme shows against your DISCOM and district. If something extra is available to you, it will appear there, tied to your account. Treat anything else as a rumour until you see it on your own login.
For context on where Odisha stands: the portal shows 1,87,377 rooftop installations in the state as of 26 August 2026, against 3,19,989 applications, with ₹859 crore of subsidy released. That puts Odisha seventh in the country by installations. This is not a scheme people are struggling to access.
What I would tell a neighbour
Do the application properly and the subsidy is reliable. The money is real, it arrives, and I have watched it land in enough accounts to say that without hedging. What causes grief is rushing: an unregistered installer, a panel nobody checked, a bank account that was never seeded.
Sort those three out before anyone climbs on your roof and the rest is paperwork. If you want to understand what you are actually paying before subsidy, read the post on what rooftop solar costs in Odisha and how long it takes to pay back. There is also a plain summary of the scheme on our PM Surya Ghar Yojana page.
And if you would rather someone just looked at your bill and told you what you qualify for, send us the details through the Get a Free Quote page. We work across Mayurbhanj and north Odisha, and there is no charge for the conversation.