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Informist, Saturday, Mar. 21, 2026
 

--NHPC source: PM rooftop solar plan tender getting weak response

 

By Gunjan Rajput 

 

NEW DELHI –  NHPC Ltd. has seen muted response to its rooftop solar tenders under the PM Surya Ghar: Muft Bijli Yojana, with developers showing limited interest due to the fragmented nature of installations, a senior company official said Saturday.

"The response has not been very good...we have floated tenders twice, (but) no response," the official said on the sidelines of an event in Delhi. Developers prefer projects with concentrated load, while rooftop solar installations under the scheme are dispersed across individual buildings, the official added.

NHPC in January floated a pan-India tender covering 25 states and Union territories for rooftop solar projects on government buildings. The Jan. 24 tender follows a tariff-based competitive bidding route with an e-reverse auction mechanism and is being executed under the Renewable Energy Service Company model, with state-wise packages.

 

Separately, the company has invited bids to set up 23.34 megawatt of grid-connected rooftop solar capacity on government buildings in Jammu and Kashmir. The project will be implemented through the Jammu and Kashmir Energy Development Agency under the central scheme. The last date for bid submission is Apr. 11 and bids will open on Apr. 16. The official said NHPC will closely monitor the response in regions such as Jammu, Kashmir and Ladakh, where installations are smaller in size but higher in number.

The PM Surya Ghar: Muft Bijli Yojana, approved by the Union Cabinet in 2024 with an outlay of INR 750 billion, aims to install rooftop solar systems in 10 million households by 2026-27. The scheme offers subsidies of up to 60% for systems up to 2-kilowatt and provides collateral-free loans at around 7% interest for installations up to 3 kilowatts.

 

As of February, about 3.10 million households have benefited from rooftop solar installations under the scheme, according to the government data. For the December quarter, the company's net profit was INR 2.93 billion on revenue of INR 18.77 billion. Friday, shares of the company closed at INR 76.80 on the National Stock Exchange, up 0.7%.  End

 

Edited by Akul Nishant Akhoury

 

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