State top-ups: UP pays Rs 15,000 per kW. Verify yours before quoting

The central subsidy is the same everywhere. The state top-up is not, and it is the number most likely to be wrong in your quotation.

What a top-up does to the price

Uttar Pradesh is the clean example. UPNEDA offers a state subsidy of Rs 15,000 per kW, capped at Rs 30,000 per residential consumer, on top of the central PM Surya Ghar assistance.

For a 3 kW residential system, that is Rs 78,000 central plus Rs 30,000 state: around Rs 1,08,000 off the price the customer pays.

On a system priced near Rs 1,80,000, the top-up is not a detail. It is the difference between a proposal that closes and one that gets compared for a month. Delhi's route goes further still and is covered in Delhi will fund the whole 3 kW system.

Why this is the number most often wrong

Because state schemes change, run out, or never quite launch, and the internet keeps quoting them anyway.

Three failure modes, all common:

• The scheme is announced but not operational. A budget speech or a cabinet decision is not a live scheme. Registration may not have opened and vendors may not have been selected.
• The scheme has a quantity cap. Several states fund a fixed number of installations rather than an open-ended commitment. A customer applying after the allocation is exhausted gets nothing, and the number circulating online does not mention that.
• The figure is simply repeated wrongly. We went looking for a widely quoted Tamil Nadu state top-up while researching this post and could not confirm it on the state nodal agency's own material. That does not prove it does not exist. It does mean nobody should be printing it on a quotation.

How to verify one properly

Four checks, in order, none taking more than a few minutes:

1. The state nodal agency. UPNEDA, TEDA, MEDA, GEDA and their equivalents publish the current schemes. That page is the primary source, not a blog.
2. The government order. A live scheme has an order with a number and a date. Find it, note the number, and keep a copy. It is also what an auditor will ask for later.
3. The eligibility fine print. Consumer category, capacity limits, whether it applies to societies as well as individual homes, and whether it is restricted to DCR modules or empanelled vendors.
4. The DISCOM or portal. Confirm that the disbursement route actually exists and that applications in that territory are being processed under it.

Then record the date you checked, because schemes lapse.

How to present it to a customer

Separate the certain from the conditional.

Show the central subsidy as a firm figure, because PM Surya Ghar is nationally administered and predictable. Show the state top-up as a separate line, with the scheme named, the amount stated, and the conditions written next to it. If there is a quantity cap or an uncertain start date, say so on the same line.

Then present the payback twice: with the top-up and without it. A customer who sees both is not disappointed by either. One who was shown only the best case will remember you as the vendor who over-promised.

Everything about how the central subsidy actually arrives, and when, is in the subsidy maths every EPC should know.

Why this matters more as the market spreads outward

State schemes are proliferating because states want the installation numbers. That means more top-ups, more variation between neighbouring districts, and more outdated figures circulating.

An EPC working a single district can memorise the local scheme. One expanding into new territory, as the growth increasingly demands, cannot. What replaces memory is a checked, dated record of each state's scheme, kept where the person writing the quotation can see it. The geography of that expansion is in the growth is in Nagpur and Varanasi.

The short version

• Uttar Pradesh pays Rs 15,000 per kW through UPNEDA, capped at Rs 30,000, taking a 3 kW household to around Rs 1,08,000 including central assistance.
• State top-ups are the figure most often quoted wrongly: announced but not operational, capped by quantity, or simply repeated incorrectly.
• Verify against the nodal agency, the government order number, the eligibility text and the portal. Record the date you checked.
• Show central assistance as firm and the state top-up as a separate, conditional line.
• Present the payback with and without the top-up.

Sources

• UPNEDA Solar Subsidy Scheme, summary of the Uttar Pradesh state scheme
• Solar Subsidy in Uttar Pradesh 2026, UPNEDA, Qbits, trade guidance
• PM Surya Ghar: Muft Bijli Yojana national portal, Government of India