The Ministry of New & Renewable Energy (MNRE) on Monday said, it has issued the operational guidelines for implementing the model solar village under the PM-Surya Ghar: Muft Bijli Yojana.

The Ministry notified the guidelines on August 9, 2024.

Under the scheme component ‘Model Solar Village,’ emphasis has been made on creating one model solar village per district across India, with the goal of promoting solar energy adoption and enabling village communities to become self-reliant in meeting their energy needs.

States with special category status

“A total financial outlay of ₹800 crore has been allocated for this component, providing ₹1 crore per selected model solar village,” the Ministry said.

In order to be considered a village under the competition mode, a village must be a revenue village with a population size above 5,000 (or 2,000 for special category States).

The selection process involves a competitive mode where villages are assessed on their overall distributed renewable energy (RE) capacity installed 6 months after the declaration of the potential candidate by the District Level Committee (DLC).

The winning village in each district, with the highest RE capacity, will receive a central financial assistance grant of ₹1 crore. The implementation of this scheme will be done by the State/UT Renewable Energy Development Agency under the supervision of the District Level Committee (DLC), ensuring that selected villages transition effectively to solar-powered communities, serving as models for other villages across the country.

The Government of India approved the PM-Surya Ghar: Muft Bijli Yojana on February 29, 2024, with the aim to increase the share of solar rooftop capacity and empower residential households to generate their own electricity. The scheme has an outlay of ₹75,021 crore and is to be implemented till FY27.

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