Availability of low-cost financing for farmers and state share of funds is a major challenge in implementation of the PM-KUSUM Scheme: Union Power & NRE Minister Shri R. K. Singh

The PM-KUSUM program, launched in March 2019 and expanded in November 2020, has the following objectives:

1. Component ‘A’: 10 GW of capacity through the installation of small solar plants each of up to 2 MW capacity on farmers’ arid/wildland;
2. Component ‘B’: Installation of 20 lakhs of grid independent solar water pumps; AND
3. Component ‘C’: Solarisation of 15 lakhs of existing grid connected agricultural pumps including feed level solarisation (FLS).

All three components combined aim to add 30.8 GW of additional solar capacity.

PM-KUSUM is a demand based scheme and therefore the quantities/capacities are allocated under the three components of the scheme based on the demand received from the States/UTs. Funds under the scheme are released based on the installation progress reported by the State Executive Agencies (SIAs) and the provisions of the scheme’s guidelines. As of 30.06.2023, a total capacity of 113.08 MW has been installed under Component ‘A’ and approximately

2.45 lakh pumps were reported installed/solarised in Component-B and Component-C combined. This equates to approximately 1323 MW of installed solar capacity. So far more than Rs 1,646 Crore has been released to the SIAs.

The availability of low-cost financing for farmers and the state share of funds is a major challenge in the implementation of the PM-KUSUM program. Furthermore, the pace of implementation has been significantly affected by the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020-21 and 2021-22.

This information was provided by the Union Minister of New Renewable Energy and Energy Sh. RK Singh to Lok Sabha in a written response today.

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AM/DP