Most residential rooftop conversations in India now start with the subsidy. The customer has seen a number on a hoarding or a reel, and they want to know whether it is real.

It is real. But the number they have seen is usually the ceiling, not their number. If your sales team cannot explain the difference in one sitting, you spend the next two weeks on WhatsApp doing it badly, and someone else closes the job.

Here is the arithmetic, what it depends on, and where deals actually go wrong.

What the scheme pays

PM Surya Ghar: Muft Bijli Yojana was launched on 13 February 2024, with a target of one crore residential households by March 2027.

Central Financial Assistance for a residential rooftop system is structured as:

60% of system cost for the first 2 kW
40% of additional system cost between 2 kW and 3 kW
Nothing above 3 kW. The assistance is capped there.

At benchmark prices that works out to roughly:

1 kW: ₹30,000
2 kW: ₹60,000
3 kW and above: ₹78,000

Those three figures are the ones to put in front of a customer. Everything else is a distraction.

The part customers get wrong

Two misunderstandings cost more deals than price does.

"₹78,000 off my quotation." No. The subsidy is disbursed to the customer's bank account after installation, inspection and commissioning. They fund the full system first. If your quotation shows a subsidy-adjusted figure without saying this plainly, you have created a payment dispute for yourself.

"I'll get free electricity." The scheme's headline is up to 300 units a month for a household. Whether a particular household reaches that depends on system size, site, shading and consumption. Promising it flatly is the fastest way to a complaint after the first monsoon bill.

Neither of these is a reason to avoid the subsidy in your pitch. They are a reason to be the person who explained it properly.

Where deals actually stall

In practice, five things hold up a residential rooftop job.

1. Consumer number mismatch

The application ties to the electricity consumer number. If the connection is in a parent's or a previous owner's name and the applicant is someone else, the application stops. Check the bill against the applicant's identity *before* you quote, not after you have booked the job.

2. Feasibility

The DISCOM checks whether the sanctioned load and the transformer can take the proposed system. A customer wanting 5 kW on a 2 kW sanctioned load has a load enhancement to do first, and that is its own timeline.

3. Vendor empanelment

The system has to be installed by a vendor registered on the national portal for that state. If you are not empanelled where the customer lives, you cannot deliver the subsidy no matter how good your price is.

4. Module compliance

Modules must comply with the applicable Approved List of Models and Manufacturers requirements. This has moved more than once, and buying stock without checking the current position is an expensive way to learn. We have written about what ALMM List-II changed for rooftop pipelines.

5. Net metering

The bidirectional meter, the inspection and the commissioning certificate all sit between installation and disbursement. This is where most of the elapsed time goes, and it is the part customers blame you for.

What to hand the customer on day one

The customers who sign quickly are the ones who leave the first meeting holding something. Not a price on a WhatsApp message. A document.

At minimum it should show:

System size and why. Tied to their actual consumption from their own bill, not a round number.
The layout. Where the modules go on *their* roof, accounting for shading, water tanks and the stairwell head.
Expected generation. Site-specific, with the assumptions stated.
The full cost, then the subsidy, then the net. In that order, with the disbursement timing written down.
The payback. Against their current tariff, not a national average.

None of that requires a second visit. It requires having the tools with you on the first one.

The honest summary

The subsidy is generous, well funded and genuinely closing deals. As of the government's own reporting, the scheme had crossed 26 lakh installations with ₹17,967 crore in support disbursed.

But it does not sell the system for you. What sells the system is being the vendor who explained the number correctly, checked the four things that could block it before quoting, and left a real document behind.

Scheme figures and rules change. Before you quote, confirm the current position on pmsuryaghar.gov.in and the MNRE site, because the version in a blog post is only ever as fresh as the day it was written.

Sources

Cabinet approves PM-Surya Ghar: Muft Bijli Yojana, Press Information Bureau
PM Surya Ghar Yojana delivers scale with 26 lakh installations and ₹17,967 crore support, Press Information Bureau
Guidelines for PM-Surya Ghar: Muft Bijli Yojana, Ministry of New and Renewable Energy