Union Culture and Tourism Minister Gajendra Singh Shekhawat on Wednesday, 24 June 2026, took to X to champion the PM Surya Ghar: Muft Bijli Yojana, urging Indian households to turn their rooftops into sources of clean energy, lower electricity bills, and additional income.

Context

Shekhawat's post, written in Hindi, carries a direct appeal to homeowners: 'Apni chhat ko kaam par lagaiye, bijli banaiye aur bachat ke saath kamai bhi badhaiye!' ('Put your roof to work, generate electricity, and grow your savings along with your income!'). He frames the rooftop not as empty space but as a gateway to clean energy, reduced power bills, and supplementary earnings.

The minister invoked Prime Minister Narendra Modi by name, describing the scheme as a vehicle through which 'millions of families are moving from being mere consumers of electricity to becoming energy producers.'

Policy Backdrop

The PM Surya Ghar: Muft Bijli Yojana was launched in 2024 as a central government initiative offering subsidies to households for installing rooftop solar systems, with the stated aim of providing up to 300 units of free electricity per month to beneficiary families. Surplus electricity generated by households can be fed back into the grid, creating an additional revenue stream — the core proposition Shekhawat highlighted.

The scheme builds on a longer arc of solar policy that traces back to the Jawaharlal Nehru National Solar Mission of 2010, which first set national targets for grid-connected and rooftop solar capacity. Rooftop solar has since emerged as a critical decentralised pillar of India's renewable energy strategy, complementing large-scale solar parks.

India has committed under the Paris Agreement to achieving 500 GW of non-fossil fuel power capacity by 2030 and net-zero emissions by 2070. Distributed rooftop installations are seen as essential to meeting those targets at the household level.

Stakeholders and Impact

The primary beneficiaries are residential households, particularly those in states with high solar irradiance, who stand to reduce their monthly electricity expenditure significantly while earning from grid export. The broader renewable energy sector — including solar panel manufacturers, installers, and financiers — also benefits from expanded demand driven by government subsidy support.

For a senior BJP leader and Lok Sabha MP from Jodhpur, Rajasthan — a sun-rich desert constituency — amplifying a rooftop solar scheme carries both policy and political resonance, connecting the national programme to a region with strong solar potential.

What's Next

Attention will now turn to rollout metrics: the number of household installations completed, subsidy amounts disbursed across states, and any parliamentary updates on the scheme's funding allocation. Sustained ministerial outreach of this kind signals that the Centre is pushing awareness and adoption as key near-term priorities for the programme.