Debate Grows Over Farmers' Share in India's Solar Expansion

India's solar capacity has grown from 2.82 GW in 2014 to 168.04 GW by August 2026. This makes India the world's third-largest solar power producer, after China and the United States. Most of this growth, about 74 per cent, comes from utility-scale solar parks built on wasteland or degraded land. Rooftop solar makes up close to 20 per cent of the total, driven largely by PM Surya Ghar: Muft Bijli Yojana. This scheme targets rooftop installation on 1 crore households. It offers a central subsidy of up to Rs 78,000 for a 3-kW system, and some states add further support on top of this. The scheme also carries a skilling component, aiming to train a large pool of installation and maintenance workers.

Farmers, however, remain largely outside this solar expansion. The PM-KUSUM scheme (Pradhan Mantri Kisan Urja Suraksha evam Utthaan Mahabhiyan) was meant to change this. Its Component A lets farmers set up solar power plants of up to 2 MW on their own land and sell power to the grid. Unlike PM Surya Ghar, Component A carries no capital subsidy, which has limited its uptake. Agriculture itself falls under Entry 14 of the State List in the Seventh Schedule, so state governments, not the Centre, control most decisions on land use, power procurement and tariffs for any farm-based solar project. This is why models like Gujarat's Khavda Solar Park, spread over the Rann of Kutch with a planned capacity of 30 GW and now the country's largest solar park, have relied on strong state-level land and infrastructure support.